Tax credits overpayment advice

krisskross

This whole system is so needlessly complicated. Trouble is we had a stupid Chancellor who wanted to manipulate the income of the whole country.

If when a child is claimed for the parent gets an increase of £2500pa tax free allowance. This will equate to roughly , I think, £10 extra in the paypacket each week. Couple this with the child benefit and we have a nice rise in income to welcome the new arrival. No messing about, no under or overpayments. Everyone treated the same. What's wrong with this? Personally I think it is very bad to keep handing over huge sums of cash merely because someone has more children than they can afford to keep.

It was always a mistake to ask the Inland Revenue to administer tax credits. They are tax gatherers not handers out.

HappyDuck_2

Tax credits aren't perfect - no-one said they were!

Problem is people generally refuse to accept responsibility for their part of the claim, fail to update HMRC, fail to read what HMRC send out, fail to do a number of things. Then when it goes wrong, when HMRC find out they weren't working for the last 6 months, or the disability they claimed they had was a "mistake" on the claim form, etc etc - ive heard it all they go mad & blame HMRC!

The people who claim tax credits are adults. Just wish they would act like it sometimes. If HMRC make a mistake & cause an OP which the applicant can not reasonable be aware of, under the terms of the COP26 OP policy booklet it can & does get remitted. Otherwise it gets paid back. How simple can it get.

The case above - yes there was a system processing delay - it happens very occasionally - it's a computer - it cant be helped. All you have to do is put your case in writing, explain the processing delay impacted you entitlement to other benefits, odds are you will be reimbursed for the loss of IS, leaving you only to bay back the difference.

sjaypink

simple as that :-)

judy2357

We owe £900 approximately even though like everyone else I informed them at every point. My biggest mistake was not realising when they didnt send me another print out of my tax credits (sorry dont know what its actually called) and therefore I didnt know that they had me down for £800 Job Seekers Allowance per year and not what I was actually earning, not sure now how much as this was a couple of years ago. I had a copy of my phone bill to prove that I actually rang the office but could not prove what I said, thus I didnt win the appeal, no surprises there, so dont hold your breath if you are appealing.

sjaypink

you cud always re appeal- send off for all held records (under the data protection act), it will include call logs, incl. purpose of the call, what info said & recorded

judy2357

Surely they would have looked into call logs on the first appeal!!

sjaypink

you reckon?! anyhow even if they did the result of the appeal 'you may be able to prove you made the phone call (the bill) but you cant prove what was said' is suggesting there may be more to it......

sjaypink

that seems a bit paranoid, but from bitter experience!

mitchaa

donnalove wrote: »

hang on mitcha the op said his brother wasn't allowed to claim is, so he is bound to spend the wtc how else was he supposed to live.

to op i think your brother should take a trip to cab and see if they can help him with this as it will get very complicated.

Did you read my post Donna?

He should have been receiving IS at £59.15pw, he was receiving WTC at £133.33pw.

A difference of £74.18pw. (Over 7 months a lot of money)

A sensible person would have spent the £59.15pw they were entitled to and banked the additional £74.18pw as he knew he was receiving far too much and it would be requested back at some point.

I get the feeling some people claiming benefits are not very bright, either that or they just think its a government mistake so they'll spend every penny and then believe they shouldn't have to pay it back:rolleyes: (Again not very bright)

He was supposed to live on the IS payment, not the WTC payment. A BIG difference, i.e 2.5X more.

That was my point, no question about his entitlement to IS (Although i would have personally thought JSA?)

Yes i'm well aware there are a lot of !!!! ups with WTC/CTC etc, but you have to question how many of them are actually down to the HMRC compared with how many of them are deliberate by the claimant.

If you have been overpaid, sorry, but how can you whinge about it? Ignorance is certainly not an excuse.

Take it on the chin, pay the money back, stop whining and act as a grown up sensible human being !!!!!!.

Total different kettle of fish if they were underpaying you though of which i'd support.

System

judy2357 wrote: »

Surely they would have looked into call logs on the first appeal!!

It is not common practise when dealing with a disputed overpayment to listen to all calls made by the claimant. Generally only household notes are read. Not all DOP staff have the facility to access recorded calls.

Making a "Subject Access Request" under the Data Protection Act is a very good idea. TCO will supply copies of all correspondence and a CD of all recorded calls. You can then ask for a review of your case once you have the proof in your hands.