Tax Credit Overpayment

[mariep1208]

hi Marie

I'm not at all surprised that you have no faith in their 'investigation'. I don't have any either, and the more cases I hear the less I have. that little phrase 'no right of appeal' is very scary isn't it. what it actually means is that you have no right to 'dispute' that you were overpaid. they are judge and jury on this, and will have rechecked the last figures they used for your income and confirmed that you were overpaid. therefore, in their eyes, there is nothing to appeal against!!

most of us are what they call, 'disputing recovery of the overpayment'. and I, like you most likely, dispute it on the grounds that we could not of known it was wrong! between supplying all info required and their incompetent practice I had no idea what the hell was going on. I had so many awards notices saying different things they just started telling me to ignore them! how's that for sound business practice! if you've not seen it yet, check out Alison's Ode to Tax Credit on my website. Alison is another TC victim who contacted me recently, she wrote the Ode the other day and sent it me. with great skill she details most of the issues involved in this farce.

if I have one piece of advice for you its this. DON'T PAY THEM A THING! I've been refusing to pay for 18 months now and I haven't been locked up or 'disappeared' yet just keep logging 'appeals of recovery'. they say you have to supply NEW info to get a re-appeal, so just add more detail. I found it very helpful to write my case out in letters received format. I've attached it for you to see. 1) it makes an easy to follow history of what THEY did. 2) it helped me pick out even more mistakes they had made. 3) it makes a simple document to send to ombudsman's, mp's etc and 4) I was able to supply mine as new info for a new appeal. it won't win my case because they have already decided "I could reasonable be expected to know something was wrong" apparently. but it ties them up with the appeal process until we can get some real justice.

they have been directly threatening me with legal action for over 6 months now. but I don't even have so much as a court date yet. hopefully you are not relying on a current award. but even if you are, they are not supposed to deduct overpayments from this until the entire appeal process is completed. if, like me, you no longer claim TC's then you are in a stronger position. cancel any direct debits to them and refuse an attachment on earnings. (where they apply to you to have the money deducted straight from your wages) I have advised several people to do this who were disputing recovery. and they have only received an additional couple of extra random letters.

so far noone has been taken to court about overpayments (there have only been court cases that clearly involved fraud, not overpayments) so please don't be scared that they can strong arm you. I had a Inland Revenue guy turn up on my doorstep unannounced the other day. he wanted to discuss 'when I would be making repayments' but I was forewarned about this new tactic of theirs. I just refused to talk to him or let him in. they have no right of entry in these cases and are only doing it to try and scare people.

we need to delay them and their strategies until we can get enough attention on this. latest figures are 2 million families are suffering because of this so called top up to lift people out of poverty. they knew the system was inherently flawed when they rolled it out, they knew it would result in massive overpayments, but they expected to just demand it all back again at the end of the tax year! or in my case, it was 2 years later when they noticed. yet they still think they can give out money, saying we are entitled to it and can spend it, but we can just stump it up when they suddenly decide they got their facts wrong.

the only justice in the situation would be an amnesty on all the recoveries caused by their terrible system.

you are more than welcome to join the growing gang of us. who are getting their heads together to work out exactly how we can achieve this.

This is a great piece of advice from a stalwart campaigner for justice. See my earlier posts for the website address which is full of great advice.

[dori2o]

Originally Posted by lynzfa

i have recieved another letter yesterday about my tax credit overpayment which im guessing means i did not win the appeal.they have said i have until the 22nd november to pay the 988 in full or i will be took to court. i dont have that sort of money to pay in full.what can i do.

The best and esiest thing to do is call them, and ask for a braekdown of the overpayment. Then also advise you would like to arrange a Time To Pay (TTP) arrangement. They will not refuse this.

The Inland Revenue are actually quite fair when it comes to arranging these TTP agreements, however, you must ensure that it is an amount you can pay.

If you dispute the underpayment as you feel you did inform them of the changes in the required timescale, and within the required limits, send them a S.A.R - (Subject Access Request), which includes a request for any notes on the record, and also the dates and times of contact.

If from these notes you can prove that you did in fact inform them correctly, then you will be able to appeal under the provision that the Revenue/TC System had overcalculated your entitlement.

Unlike has been mentioned before, there are actually loads of people who have appealed these overpayments and have had them remitted.

[meagain]

Originally Posted by dori2o

If from these notes you can prove that you did in fact inform them correctly, then you will be able to appeal under the provision that the Revenue/TC System had overcalculated your entitlement.

Precisely. If you've kept them informed, and your award notices match your circumstances, you have every reason to believe your payments were correct. If despite this they were not correct, then the overpayment is clearly not your fault, and your appeal should succeed.

[lynzfa]

i recieved court papers this morning from northampton court.the inland revenue are taking me to court for the overpayment.it is now £1008.17 including court costs.i dont know what to do now.i cant afford to pay this and it wasnt my mistake in the first place

[meagain]

At this point, you might need professional help. At the very least, the first thing that comes to my mind is asking for disclosure, and defending on the basis that they missed some important information, but I dare not say any more than this for fear of forming some coherent advice.

Make sure that if pressed you can at least produce the paperwork you would need - award notices, copies of letters you have sent (or at least when they were sent - may have been up to a month before they were processed at HMRC), dates of telephone calls. If you don't have these, again, ask for disclosure of these from your record notes (referred to internally as "Household Notes").

According to the papers, how long do you have to reply?

[lynzfa]

i have until the 21st december to enter a defence or admit the amount owed.I have asked the tax credits for a list of when i have made calls to them and they said they cannot give me that informatuion

[lynzfa]

am i supposed to disput the claim or admit it,i have no idea what to do

[dori2o]

Originally Posted by lynzfa

i have until the 21st december to enter a defence or admit the amount owed.I have asked the tax credits for a list of when i have made calls to them and they said they cannot give me that informatuion

Yes you can have this information, however, you will have to request it via a Data Protection Act Subject Access Request.

The information held on the tax credits record is your data, therefore under the data protection act, you are entitled to see it. The Revenue however do have a right to charge the standard £10 fee for providing this information.

Contact them and advise that you will be sending this request as you need the information as evidence to back up your claim, and ask them to delay the deadline until you have it.

[demon_x_slash]

Make sure to request all data, but to be specific about what you really need for this, so: Data Protection Act entitles me to every piece of information you have on me, including telephone call notes, call records, calculations made based on given circumstances... they may 'forget' to include if you don't ask specifically.

By sending a S.A.R - (Subject Access Request) and disputing the amount, doesn't that put the account into dispute anyway, negating court action? Or am I forgetting that this is THE GOVERNMENT we're talking about, and the normal laws of physics do not apply..?

[graham1968]

Dear all,
To keep a long story very short...
We received an overpayment in 2003, and the tax office paid us compensation for hassle via our MP, and they admitted it was their fault (they missed a zero from my pay when transposing the info to their systems. The amount we received each month exactly matched our daughters nursery fees, and as we didnt receive a benefit calc for 10 mths we thought the nursery fees would have formed part of the calc.
Now we're being chased for paying back the overpayment and they are refusing to waive it, ignoring the fact they have admitted it was their fault (I have the letters from their sneior manager to our MP!) and having already paid us compensation for the hassle caused, the phone calls made, the letters written to get a benefit calc.

I've tried talking to the 'helpline', but they tell me they can't speak to the tax credit people either, so they've sent another complaint form out for me to fill in....circles anyone?
It's difficult to know where to take this one next, as we seem to have exhausted the process, and we can't get them to understand they have already admitted its their error and we couldnt have known about it. How can they effectively go back and reinterpret a decision they made in 2003?

do I wait until they take me to court and then show the judge the evidence? It'll surely be thrown out?

[cheddar]

I never had a problem with Tax Credits until this financial year, we had a few changes in circumstances and always told them immediately of a change and our award changed accordingly, but the problem i noticed was when we had a change in june we didn't get an award notice showing new payments based on info given to them, since them our circs have changed many times and each time we have NEVER had a new award notice, I don't have a clue what they are basing my claim on, who is included on my claim. Everytime i tell them this they say there is an error on your claim and it cannot print out an award notice!!!

They often ask me when i ring up if i am working, i haven't worked since feb 2005, they have me and my husband working at the same place at the same time, then we get a letter asking if my husband is still working for a company he stopped working for 3 days into the new financial year!!

The system is crazy and I really do feel ever so sorry for anyone that has problems with them and anyone who works on their helpline, the abuse they must get doesn't bear thinking about and they aren't the ones makes the problems.

I am not sure where to turn right now because with our latest change in circs our award is zero and this is having an effect on our income...think i might get my MP involved.

[jcasey2408]

cheddar i am the same i nearly lost my claim for housing and council tax benefit because of '' the error on the system'' and them being unable to produce an award notice 17 phonecalls and 4 months later i still haven't received a printd but luckily the housing benefit people are aware of the tax credits computer failure.

My other problem now is that back when the system first started and the chaos involed we were left for 5 weeks without payment so got emergency payments from the inland revenue office. Last year they sent me a letter asking for the payments to be paid back as my award wasn't adjusted at the time to compensate for these payments. I have since split from the childs father and had no idea where he was and didn't want him to know where i was either. I offered to pay half the money as at the time i was a stay at home mum but we were still both equaly responsible for the payments so both equally responsible for paying it back. They refused this. And i have spent months trying to get it sorted. They stated that since i no longer recieve tax credits ( I'VE ALWAYS CLAIMED TAX CREDITS?) they are unable to claim it back through any current award.

Then this morning out of the blue i have recieved county court papers as they are taking me and my ex to court to reclaim to overpayment.

Now i'm lost as to what to do.

My first problem is that both mine and my ex's addresses are on the court papers which has really annoyed me as i have tried really hard to keep my location from him. But now he has my full address. A complete breach of my privacy.

I dont have any award notices as they were lost in transit when we moved so i can't argue if the payment is right or not also as i wasn't working and my ex was. i am unable to find out how much he earned to check if the figures are correct or not. I did ring and tell them of all changes and when it got to the end of the year and they wanted final figures i explained to them that i was unable to provide them as we were no longer together and they would have to find him and ask him themselves.

So does anyone one know where i stand and what i should do it's not a huge amount of money £400 but it's the principle of the situation that is getting to me more.

[meagain]

Originally Posted by jcasey2408

I offered to pay half the money as at the time i was a stay at home mum but we were still both equaly responsible for the payments so both equally responsible for paying it back.

Sadly this isn't the case. You are not each responsible for half, the two of you share responsibility for the whole lot. For a better explanation, search around for "joint and several liability", but the upshot is that they can ask you for the whole lot, and how you settle the matter with your ex is your problem (note that this is standard practice in any contract).

They stated that since i no longer recieve tax credits ( I'VE ALWAYS CLAIMED TAX CREDITS?) they are unable to claim it back through any current award.

If your current award is nil, or no more payments are due between now and April, they have nothing to deduct it from. Because of the joint and several liability, they also cannot offset overpayments on joint awards against later sole awards.

What is the deadline for return of the court papers? Ideally, you should have received advance notice of this (usually, but not always, headed "Letter Before Action"), giving you something like 7-14 days before going to court. If you didn't, you may be able to use this against them, but if it has been dragging on for months, you might not.

I dont have any award notices as they were lost in transit when we moved so i can't argue if the payment is right or not also as i wasn't working and my ex was. i am unable to find out how much he earned to check if the figures are correct or not.

That may be a problem. Ask them for an up-to-date "award notice" and a "calculation notice", and you may need to issue a Data Protection Act Subject Access Request (when I worked for them, the Revenue did not make a charge for this, but to reduce delays the letter must go to Benton Park View - I can give more details if this is the case). Of course, if your papers are lost, the problem in the meantime will be proving that you could have had good reason to believe the payments were correct. If your emergency payments were not noted on an early award notice, they could argue that you should have noticed this.

[sinking_fast]

just been over to tax credit overpayment site, which i found quite helpful, even though i've got 3 overpayments i'm fighting and one of them is at the adjudicators appeal, there is still info i didn't know about, this is defo a good place to go to see the appeal process, as the TC office aren't very helpful (no disrespect to any TC workers meant) with the appeal process i was told in my first appeal letter "you have no more right to appeal" when i did, so don't be fobbed off, find out your rights, and fight for what you believe in

[traceyrmj]

weeeel, they over paid me over a grand and then told me that they would take it back by not paying me again untill they had clawed back the money, unfortunatly for them i had phone records of every call i made ( one a day for weeks telling them i was not entitled to the money) copies of letters sent recorded delivery telling them i had not been entitled to the money and even a solicitors letter saying the same. i complained that they would effectivly be taking my cash away for 4 years. yup 4 years! they said the rule must stand as i knew i was not entitled and shouldnt have spent it. i pointed out that it went into my moneypit of an overdraft and got swallowed up before i even knew it was there.
they stood their ground and april rolls around again and the system reset to last years stats and they started paying me ooodles of cash again i contacted them again in a deluge of calls and letters and finally had to close the account they were paying into so they couldnt pay into it any longer, they sent me cheques that i returned to them. keeping copies.

finally i told them that as they had made the mistake and i was told by one member of their staff that i wouldnt have to pay it back i wouldnt pay it back, i could prove i had taken extraordinary steps to stop them overpaying me and if i had the money id pay it back but i was told i didnt have to. 8 months and a hearing ( not court, mediation type thing) later they aggreed in writing to pay back all the money they had clawed back off us and in future to pay us as normal. now i am wise to it i have them paid into a seperate acount and only use what i know we are entitled to have and any small discrepancies will be glaringly obvious.