Overpayment

sadyork

My wife recieves Incapacity benefit on behalf of our 18yr old son, he is severly disabled, Child tax are saying that he shouldnt have recieved any payments since he was 16 they say there is apotential overpayment of £10k, advice please

kitty1801

It looks like the overpayment may be correct as once a child reaches 16, they have to be in full time education or in approved training (see http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/taxcredits/which-children-claim.htm) to be able to continue claiming until they are 19.

The claim should automatically stop paying out for the child once they turn 16 unless you tell them that the child is still in education/training. It's probably worth checking back through your tax credit notices to check this.

You can appeal any overpayment decision but you need to provide an explanation as to why you think it is unfair. If your wife did state that your son was in education/training then I am afraid there isn't much you can do...

sadyork

My son was in full time education, (we were advised that he was then elegable for Incapacity benefit) he still is at a special school.

kitty1801

Sounds like you need to make an appeal against the decision. If it is only a potential overpayment they may not accept an appeal at this stage. Why is it only a potential overpayment?

sadyork

Because they say if he was claiming incapacity benefit he shouldnt have been recieveing CTC so if they back date it to when he started claiming IB then that would be nearly £10k in overpayment!!

muppet_1

Don't understand how tax credits did not know he was getting IB. thought this was one of the agencies that cross referenced. You could try appealing stating it was their mistake and you would suffer financial hardship.
we have had 5 packs each( 10 lots of postings) this year from tax credits due to their mistakes.

sadyork

Ive just had a conversation CTC and stated that they dont take into account social benefits paid to our 18yr old handicapped child, and that there would be NO overpayment charge. I have taken their name and recorded the time/date that they said this. Should they try to claim for overpayment againI will have evidence to the contrary!