High income child benefit - charges for benefit I never received??

Dazed_and_confused wrote: »

@Dazed and Confused: What do you mean with "Child benefit charge has nothing to do with child benefit you received"? Not sure I understand. What would the charge be for if not for allegedly receiving benefit? (which I haven't).

It is the higher earner in the household who has to pay child benefit back so you might not have been receiving it but your spouse could have been and you, if the higher earner, would have been responsible for paying the tax charge.

Ah ! Thanks for clarifying - I understand what you meant now.

Update:
Spoken both to the department that sent the letter and to the child benefit office today.
As suggested in this thread, I need to get a letter from the child benefit office stating my benefit has stopped and that last payment was in Januaru 2013 (which the benefit office confirmed). I have exactly 1 month to do this but the child benefit office says the letter will take 4 weeks. Although the tax department said they put a note on my file re. next steps etc I dont trust confirmations over phone so have this morning sent a letter (recorded) to explain why I disagree and for them to postpobe the deadline to accommodate the receipt of the letter feom child benefit office.

So thanks to advice from helpful moneysavers I felt more confident during the call with the two departements.