In real need of advice here IR, JSA money issues

danz0l

OK this one seems complex to me but may be simple. We need some advice from somebody that knows how these things work as we simply arn't getting any help from the Inland Revenue on our queries.

Ok wife has been working part time for 4 years, claiming working tax credits. She worked 16 hours a week on a weekly wage of £90.72 and a top up from tax credits of £65.46. This only ever changed when she was issued a pay rise (this year was 5p extra an hour but she always informed them straight away)

Her last wage slip stated she had earned £4213.

She had to give up her job last friday (7th) and we informed the inland revenue of a change of circumstance.

I get child tax credits of £80.88 weekly and child benefit monthly at £120.80. I haven't worked in the entire four year period that my wife was employed and we was told from the inland revenue that this payment of £80.88 would not change when i claim for job seekers allowance.

So i got the ball rolling, informed the social security that i would still be getting £80.88 child tax credits which they obviously take into account.

Yesterday we noticed a new payment in our bank account from the inland revenue of £67.84 so contacted them asking what the payment was for. This is when it all went horribly wrong and got incredibly confusing.

We was told that this payment was an overpayment due to change of circumstance. Weird i know but bare with me.

So we asked what we would get next week and was informed that we would get £67.79 each week up until the 10th April. Alarm bells started to ring and i told them that my circumstance had NOT changed and only my wifes had. The woman baffled us on the phone and so we had to ring back. The next representative was even worse.

So we are loosing £13.04 a week due to their overpayment we never asked for. Fine i can understand that to a degree. This worked out we was loosing £39.12

However then we was informed that from 10th April till 10th July we would only be getting £73.22. So we was loosing money again and for a period of 4 months.

I'll be honest i got pretty angry about all this as you can imagine. So now we was loosing £7.66 a week for a period of 14 weeks, or £107.24.

So in total we are loosing £146.36 on a supposed overpayment of £67.79 we never asked for or requested.Confused yet ?

Now we got our award notice today and that states the same as above apart from a small note on the award saying

Although we calculate that £157.62 is due to you, we will pay you £271.21 from now till the 5th April 2008. The first figure takes into account everything we have paid you so far. But in case this causes you financial hardship, we will pay you the second amount and collect back any resulting overpayment later on. If you would prefer us to pay less now so that you have less to pay back later please contact us.

If nothing else changes before the 5th April 2008 you will be overpaid by £113.59 for this award period.

We intend to collect this from future awards by reducing your payments under section 29 (4) of the tax credits act 2002.

We rely on the £80.88 as this pays for food etc and was assured none of this would change. The social security was informed of the £80.88 and obviously will take this into account when awarding our JSA. We are effectively on less income (because my wife is now not working) and yet set to have less child tax credit as well for a period of 4 months.

We told the IR that we don't want the overpayment received yesterday of £67.84, never requested it or can survive on the amount they are now awarding us. The lady on the phone said she could appeal against it if we like which we have of course and that we could also make a formal appeal.

Now we don't know where to turn. JSA will think we are getting money we simply aren't, we'll be on less weekly on child tax credits and haven't a clue what to do, where to go or how to sort this mess out.

Anyone, anywhere, please offer us some advice as its causing a serious amount of stress.

danz0l

Can anybody offer any advice ?

tigtag02

You and your wifes circumstances are not looked at seperately but as a family and your circumstances HAVE changed.

What is you wife bringing in now that she has finished her job?

danz0l

Unfortnately nothing now (shes lost her job). so its changed for the worse. Thats the point i was trying to make to them. Yet i now have lost money too, which doesn't make much sense to me at all.

tigtag02

danz0l wrote: »

Unfortnately nothing now (shes lost her job). so its changed for the worse. Thats the point i was trying to make to them. Yet i now have lost money too, which doesn't make much sense to me at all.

I'm not too up on this BUT would it not be better now to claim IS as a family as opposed to your JSA with the CTC?

Check it out on entitledto

danz0l

Sorry i'm not enterily sure what IS is ? Is that income support ? If so wouldn't you have had to pay tax into that and as we was only full family credit without payment of tax, its likely we wouldn't be entitled.

Thanks for the website though, didn't know that was available. I'll try it now and see what it says i should be entitled to.

danz0l

Well according to the entitledto.com website we should hopefully get £92.80 a week JSA and we SHOULD be entitled to the full £81.35 weekly child tax credits. I really can't get my head around where this supposed overpayment came from or why and how they can justify us having to pay back this amount of money.

So still hoping for advice on appeals procedures and how best to sort this mess out please.

[Deleted User]

How soon after stopping her job did you inform TCO? It sounds as though there has been an overpayment and instead of reducing your award right now they are leaving it until the next tax year to take most of it from you.

This "overpayment" you got in to the bank - was it on your usual payment day?
When you inform them of a change in circumstances the system recalculates your award and sometimes issues a "one-off payment" outwith your usual payment date.
To balance out your yearly entitlement your future payments decrease.

[Deleted User]

Yes you "should" be entitled to £81.35 p/w but that is only an estimate without any changes of circumstance happening. Tax Credits are worked out over a period of time usually a full year - not per week.

If you are unhappy with the overpayment at the end of the financial year you can call them up and ask for the reason in writing but the written explanation can take 10-12 weeks.

danz0l

subsoniccoyote wrote: »

How soon after stopping her job did you inform TCO? It sounds as though there has been an overpayment and instead of reducing your award right now they are leaving it until the next tax year to take most of it from you.

This "overpayment" you got in to the bank - was it on your usual payment day?
When you inform them of a change in circumstances the system recalculates your award and sometimes issues a "one-off payment" outwith your usual payment date.
To balance out your yearly entitlement your future payments decrease.

We informed them the straight away Monday morning. We get Child Tax Credits on a Thursday and received the normal amount, the extra payment was then in our bank on Friday and we promptly telephoned them.

We told them to take that money back but they said that that wasn;t possible. We are so confused.

danz0l

subsoniccoyote wrote: »

Yes you "should" be entitled to £81.35 p/w but that is only an estimate without any changes of circumstance happening. Tax Credits are worked out over a period of time usually a full year - not per week.

If you are unhappy with the overpayment at the end of the financial year you can call them up and ask for the reason in writing but the written explanation can take 10-12 weeks.

This is the ting i can't get my head around. Our change of circumstance is actually for the worse, not the better, so we are totally confused why we owe them and are on reduced child tax credits. They didn't seem able to explain either.