tax credit overpayments new report published

victoriaplum1

stclair.....they have told me they will take it by reducing what they pay me each month...kind of a we owe you x amount....but you owe us x amount so we'll take ours from yours and pay you less for a period of time.

soss

I informed the inland rev that i no longer needed tax credits and they stopped last August then this August I had a bill for £800+ which I am now paying off at £30.00 a month. I asked the guy at the tax office if it was a loan and if it was shouldn't I have been told and he got shirty and said it was't a loan. Also they take into account gross earnings but if like me you have 2 part time jobs the gross earnings do not give a true picture of your income as there's 20% tax out of one of your wage packets. I'm a lone parent and I have always worked and I feel I'm being penalised and held in poverty because of my circumstances, the more I earn the worse off I am.

babeincornwall

I have just had a horrible conversation with TC! I realised 2 weeks ago that they'd put my income as £0 when i told them at the renewal what my income was and that nothing had changed. So i phoned them to point this out. I realised that my award would go down and that i'd been overpaid but asked if that overpayment could be a seperate issue and for the ammended award to be just on the base of my income, well they have renewed it and taken into account what has been paid so what i'm entitled to has been reduced by £60 per week, in total from what i was getting up till 2 weeks ago my award has gone down by £135 per week!
Can they do this? I wanted to deal with the overpayment seperately and actually i wanted to appeal it as it wasn't my fault it was their mistake. The guy on the phone a minute ago was so horrible and complaining about my child making a noise, i'm really frustrated, can anyone help?

missfoxee

mmm well I have an overpayment of £6,254 and to top it all they have stopped my tax credits because apparently they never received my form how strange is that especially when I reported changes on it too...( I soo wish I wasn't so damn honest sometimes) and the best bit is I have a month to pay back that sum.... someone pass me the rope to hang myself whilst I am at it hehe

[Deleted User]

missfoxee wrote: »

mmm well I have an overpayment of £6,254 and to top it all they have stopped my tax credits because apparently they never received my form how strange is that especially when I reported changes on it too...( I soo wish I wasn't so damn honest sometimes) and the best bit is I have a month to pay back that sum.... someone pass me the rope to hang myself whilst I am at it hehe

Was it stopped because you didnt complete your renewal or because you didnt return a signed award notice?

If you contact them within 30 days of the termination letter they can re-instate the claim.

Happyviolet

Firstly i used to work on the tax credits helpline so i know the background to the tax credits systems.
Tax credits are a deeply flawed system with several problems which i won't go into here. But as a rule of thumb, always over estimate your income. If you feel you are receiving too much money check the details on your award notice for discrepencies (i know they dont always send them!). More often than not it is because the income is too low on your claim. They are not allowed to tell you what is on the system on the helpline so just tell them what you want it to be. They should change it for you.
As for cancelling a claim part way through the tax year, when doing this you claim is cancelled from April CY onwards and so you have to pay the amount paid so far back (i don't know why this is the case), a decent adviser should have told you this when you called.

Also upon renewal telling the advisor there are no changes is not enough. Everyone should take the time to adjust the household income and as i say be generous if you are estimating. If you need to be paid more at the end of the financial year you will receive it.

The system is terrible and i feel very sorry for those who have applied in good faith, and have been overpaid.

aoc1234

Hi all!

Ive had a substantial amount of money put in my bank account by child tax credit which im not entitled to and ive no idea why its appeared. Where do i go from here? Do i ring them and tell them about the mistake made or do i play thick and just leave it in till they notice.

Im a honest person, but if its left for so long cant i keep it?

Thanks!

BeenieCat

aoc1234 wrote: »

Hi all!

Ive had a substantial amount of money put in my bank account by child tax credit which im not entitled to and ive no idea why its appeared. Where do i go from here? Do i ring them and tell them about the mistake made or do i play thick and just leave it in till they notice.

Im a honest person, but if its left for so long cant i keep it?

Thanks!

Unfortunatey not, if it's a mistake they'll recover it eventually. I'd ring them so it was off my shoulders, but if you're set on keeping hold of it then put it in a savings account and get some interest on it - just make sure it's there when they ask for it back, and don't borrow it

Is there no way it could be yours? You might have been getting underpaid?

Mrs_Optimist

We have also been overpaid and our payments have stopped - luckily we don't rely on them but I really feel for families that do.

We wrote to them arguing that the overpayments (£3000 in total) were their mistake as all information we have given them has been correct and we have always renewed on time using P60 figures not guestimates. Today we had a letter saying that they will write-off the overpayment for 2005-2006 amounting to around £280 - but they state we owe them £3000 ! I duly called them and was told that we also received overpayments for 2004-2005, 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 - How I honestly do not know - we haven't received any payments from them for the past 2 years as we had to pay back the overpayment - apparantly I now have to write in and ask them to investigate the overpayments for all periods which I thought we had already done when we wrote in with our initial complaint. I am also suppposed to write down details of all telephone conversations I have had with them over the last 5 years to back up my claim ! I KNOW that all information we have given to them has been correct and I intend sending in copies of all our P60s for the last 5 years to prove it and they can cross-check it with their own records but it is a pain in the backside - we are in debt through no fault of our own.

Incidentally there was a period when they incorrectly entered me as having had no earnings for a tax year which was incorrect and I called them to tell them and also wrote in. Notwithstanding this they paid a lump sum in our account and when I called to query it I was assured that the money was ours to spend and that the system was not geared up to accept refunds from us so even though I was doubtful we were entitled to it we were not able to return it to them.

What a sham !

MarkII

£8000 we owe apparently!!!!

Again it stems from 2004. When we started claiming the tax credits they had me down as working 45 hours a week and earning £0. I called on numerous occassions and nothing was changed.

Each year it goes up slightly. We give them every bit of info they want and yet they cannot give us the correct amount.

When I first raised the issue they blamed it on a computer error, but now they deny any responsibility. What do I do?