Child Tax Credit Renewal - Can they do this?

[Simon7685]

That's good news about giving it a go. Why not give HMRC a ring and ask why yu are expected to be solely responsible for the overpayment? That will at least shed some light on that aspect.

Keep in touch with what is going on.

Simon

[Melly31]

See below, sorry messed up post 1st time!

[Melly31]

I came across this thread whilst trying to help a friend on a similar prob (ie overpayment) & being (what I would call an expert!) at fighting these useless b£"$%^ds I thought a reply stating 'I FOUGHT & I WON' would help drive you forward?

Just to try & give you a brief (the briefest) circumstances of my case;
When WTC & CTC first came out in April 2003 (I think?) I was awarded £5200 pw towards childcare costs, I immediately questions this & I was told sometimes childcare costs are stated as a yearly figure (which I was told mine were) & to divide by 52 to get weekly amount etc, this made sense & thankfully I kept a booklet that also said this (which was deleted from their notes a yr later). But when I reported the birth of my 4th son my award went down by approx £90 a week! How why what.........it seems that I had been misinformed & I was therefore receiving the max childcare entitlement of £140 pw (I was only entitled to 70% of £100 = £70 pw), not sure if any1 remembers but the breakdown of money received & what it was for was never stated on early notifications so I was completely unaware.
By time I had my 4th son I had to go on income support-after maternity money ended as my partner & father of my 4 sons died in a car accident whilst I was pregnant with son no 4 & I could not afford the £255 a wk childcare costs on my own to return to work.
So them taking £90 pw off me (which did not include the extra I should have been receiving for having another son or the baby element) really hit me hard!
As far as I was concerned it was their mistake, I did not know I was being overpaid & I made every effort to question them about my award in 2003.
They however did not agree; I finally got the £3640.00 I had by this time paid them back, refunded to me in April 2006!

It was a long & hard fight; they were relentless in their pursuit of me & were very inconsiderate. My MP contacting them made no difference whatsoever!
But I got there in the end (so much so that they actually refunded me twice-NO I have not brought this to their attention & I do not plan to, but I do think they'll work it out 1 day?!?!? But the pure hell & hardship I had to endure when I went from being in a partnership with both of us working full time to being widowed & on income support raising 4 kids alone puts me off bringing this to their attention, call it a little compensation payment!)

Facts I have learnt along the way:

Forget the helpline staff & the helpline managers; neither can help (& most would never even try!), YOU NEED TO SPECIFICALLY ASK FOR YOUR OVERPAYMENT TO BE LOOKED AT BY THE DIRECTORS OFFICE, this is a department within the tax credits office (they are not independent) but they are the only ones who can overturn/change a decision & you cannot go to an appeals tribunal unless they have looked at your case, (if you somehow got to court without this it would be 99% likely your case would be thrown out of court & you'd be back to square 1!) they don't seem to direct a lot (other benefit agencies call them adjudicators/decision makers) & it takes months if not years but they do eventually cave in; esp as if they disallow your dispute & the courts then say that they were wrong they get into trouble-3 strikes & you’re out so to speak!

They can legally deduct 25% from your current entitlement if you are working, 10% if you are receiving Income Support etc; this amount is per entitlement (ie if you are half way through the yr-say its end of Sept-& your are entitled to £50 pw tax credits, this is an annual award of £2600 for full yr & £1300 as its half way through yr, the 25% is only off the £1300 you are yet to be paid-not the full yrs entitlement; so you'd pay back £325 over remaining 6 months of yr & you'd receive £37.50 a wk-£45 pw if you were only repaying 10%) This amount DOES NOT change if you have a partner & if they are deducting more than this either contact you MP (this is 1 area that they can change with 1 phone call) or find your nearest tax credit office open to the public (there are over 2000 throughout the country but they aren’t well advertised-ask your local job centre where your nearest 1 is), go in there & the advisor will ring tax credits on your behalf to discuss your situation; REFUSE TO LEAVE THE OFFICE UNTIL THEY HAVE AMMENDED YOUR REPAYMENTS! If they try to intimidate you with the police, tell them to do it (in return tell them that you’ll ring your local newspaper & invite them down for the show!) DO NOT FORGET THAT IF THEY ARE DEDUCTING ANYTHING MORE THAN THE 25% OR 10% THEN THEY ARE ACTING UNLAWFULLY/ILLEGALLY & YOU HAVE DONE NOTHING WRONG; THIS STAND OFF HAS WORKED FOR MANY INDIVIDUALS.

If you are struggling for any reason (in or out of work) they must cease all deductions & have the case assessed by an adjudicator in the overpayments department, they should write to you further asking for a full breakdown of your incomings/outgoings; based on this they can pretty much do what they want; ie half your repayments & even write off the debt (or some of it). If they halved your repayments without halving the debt though, this would mean that you would pay the debt over twice the time & you would have to go through this hardship claim yearly!

You can appeal against any written entitlement you receive from them; this can even be a year down the line (if you'd been paying the debt off for that yr for example). To explain your delay in questioning your apparent overpayment, 'this is the first notification I have received confirming my debt' would be sufficient-your award notifications are not sent recorded delivery after all! (Just to reiterate, the appeal would not be at tribunal, but carried out by the director’s office within WFTC/CTC before that stage).

Your MP may be able to help, but mostly they can’t; I however have found that constantly hounding them on a daily basis (if you can afford the phone bill) works much better. But DO NOT ring the helpline; instead go straight through to the director’s office; this can be done by many ways; your MP can give you their direct line tel no, or you can ring the tax credits head office (tel: 020 7667 4001) they will either transfer your call or give you the direct line number for the director’s office; try for the latter! You can also write to the head office (this option also gets your dispute dealt with more quickly, their address:

Higher Complaints Department
Inland Revenue Head Office
Somerset House
Strand
London
WC2R 1LB

What happens if I have been overpaid tax credits?
If you have been overpaid tax credits, the Revenue will normally try to recover the overpayment by reducing your tax credit payments. They should not recover an overpayment that is the result of an ‘official error’ as long as you could not have reasonably been expected to realise you were being overpaid. The Revenue also has the discretion not to recover an overpayment if you can show that this will cause you hardship.
Seek advice if you are told by the Revenue that you’ve been overpaid or are likely to be overpaid. If you dispute that an overpayment has occurred or dispute the amount of the overpayment, you can lodge an appeal.
But if you accept you’ve been overpaid, you have no right of appeal against a Revenue decision to recover the money. Instead you can ask them to use their discretion not to recover it. If they insist on recovery you can challenge this through the Revenue’s complaints procedure.
If you are disputing the recovery of an overpayment on the basis of official error, the Revenue should suspend further deductions until they have made a decision on your case. For more information about tax credit overpayments phone our helpline.

For more advise on Tax credits overpayments see leaflet COP26; which can be found online here:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/leaflets/cop26.pdf

Hope that’s helped?

Mel.

[The GodMother]

Mel

Just a question but what is classed as a official error?

My Mum is dyslexic and as a result she went down to the local tax office and THEY filled out the paperwork on her behalf. Took copies of all documents etc and basically said sign here after everything was done.

now she has been told that she was overpaid buy over £5,000.00 and they are taking this off her but have admitted that the local tax office may have made the mistake. All tax credits stuff has been taken to the local office and explained to her and as far as she is concerned she gave them the info they asked for so they are in the wrong.

Is this classed as a error on there part or mums or is this classed as a official error.

[Melly31]

Originally Posted by The GodMother

Mel

Just a question but what is classed as a official error?

My Mum is dyslexic and as a result she went down to the local tax office and THEY filled out the paperwork on her behalf. Took copies of all documents etc and basically said sign here after everything was done.

now she has been told that she was overpaid buy over £5,000.00 and they are taking this off her but have admitted that the local tax office may have made the mistake. All tax credits stuff has been taken to the local office and explained to her and as far as she is concerned she gave them the info they asked for so they are in the wrong.

Is this classed as a error on there part or mums or is this classed as a official error.

Hi Godmother,

This is classed as an official error; your mum is Dyslexic, therefore she could not have possibly been even expected to read through the completed form (let alone actually made sense of it); if you for example had completed her application incorrectly she would more than likely be responsible for the overpayment, but as it was actually 1 of them who completed the form it's there error!

They may try & say that she misinformed them at the interview (they prob will) don't get too upset, they'll try this with every individual in the hope that they walk away; every error THEY make is noted & publicised, so they'd be doing their jobs incorrectly if they did not try to convince you that it was your (your mum's) mistake!

(Just to point out that I am actually a civil servant (hence reasons for me knowing a lot about their procedures), I am not however the enemy & me working for DWP did absolutely nothing to get my complaint resolved any faster!) I still think that they are absolutely useless!

Here is a pasted part of their official error document I happened to have:


2. Interpretation

(1) In these Regulations -
"The Board" means the Commissioners of Inland Revenue;
"Official error" means an error relating to a tax credit made by -
(a) An officer of the Board,
(b) An officer of the Department for Work and Pensions,
(c) An officer of the Department for Social Development in Northern Ireland, or
(d) A person providing services to the Board or to an authority mentioned in paragraph (b) or (c) of this definition, in connection with a tax credit or credits, to which the claimant, or any of the claimants, or any person acting for him, or any of them, did not materially contribute, excluding any error of law which is shown to have been an error by virtue of a subsequent decision by a Social Security Commissioner or by a court;"

3 [No heading]

(1) A decision under section 14(1), 15(1), 16(1), 18(1), (5), (6) or (9), 19(3) or 20(1) or (4) may be revised in favour of the person or persons to whom it relates if it is incorrect by reason of official error, subject to the following paragraphs.
(2) In revising a decision, the officer or person in question need not consider any issue that is not raised by the application for revision by the claimant or claimants or, as the case may be, did not cause him to act on his own initiative.
(3) A decision mentioned in paragraph (1) may be revised at any time not later than five years after the end of the tax year to which the decision relates.

A word of advice for you & your mum; don't be intimidated by them, unless they videod the origional interview & they are correct (we know they are not & they did not) they cannot possibly try to blame your mum. They are there to provide a service for Dyslexic people & it is their job/responsibility to get it correct 1st time every time! If you can get it, a doctors letter to confirm your mum is Dyslexic forwarded onto their head office with a covering letter will move this on considerably (esp if you mention going public with this!). Another useful aid I've found is Welfare Rights; they often set up drop in advise centre's at your local library & I feel that they would love this kind of problem (CAB are yet to help me in anyway with any prob!)

Hope this helps; please feel free to pm me if you have any more questions (or post them on this thread) & I’ll do anything I can to help,

Mel.