Tax Credit Overpayment

[DANIELLESMUM]

Thanks for the link. I have only had a very quick look but it's an ace website and it will really help. Your scales have been duly clicked

 

Your template form info is very similar to what I need to write and so I will be stealing bits of it, hope thats OK

 

I now feel confident enough to say "Bring it on tax office!!!"

 

 

Thanks loads

 

 

Danielles Mum

[JENNDOUG]

i am the same phoned thm to say i had a partner now so they stopped my tax credit an we re applied it took about 3 months then we got £2000 i had phoned them to query it but it was said to be correct,know they want back £1000 i am raiging as we dont have hat sort of money 2 pay back.

[wiltsgurl]

WOW Im glad Im not the only one. For the last 2 and a half years, HMRC have been chasing hubby and I for £581 for tax year 03/04. Now at home I have a mountain of letters from various dates within that year that were sent to us, all stating we were entitled to different amounts and making the whole matter very confusing. However, the last letter for that tax year we received stated we had actually been underpaid by 1p and that as it was such a small amount they would not be doing anything about it!

 

So despite numerous phone calls to the IR at the time, they never had the correct information and when we received our first letter asking us to pay back the money we were told by the helpful guy on the other end of the phone that we neednt worry about paying it back as a lot of people had received the letter and it was all a computer error. Being it was xmas time that was a huge relief. Six months later we get another one (we made another phone call) and then another one a few months after that which actually stated our case had been passed onto the debt collection team.

 

They then sent us a letter making an appt for them to come and see us to "discuss the repayment and debt" but as we work we couldnt make the appt, and besides we were not willing at all to pay the money back as we have had written proof we had not been overpaid.

 

Now apparently the matter is going to court and I am willing to fight them all the way. The whole bloody system is a nightmare for those who choose to be honest and do things the right way - perhaps if hubby and I sat on our backsides all day and had 20 kids between us wed get all the help we needed! GRRRR

 

Suffice to say the year 03/04 does look like its caused a lot of problems for the HMRC and tax credits.

[meagain]

I have been reading this thread with interest and note that quite a few people posting on here are actually ex tax credit staff, so I wondered if anyone around could tell me what a "Code of Practice 26" form is.

 

Code of Practice 26: What happens if we have paid you too much tax credit? (HTML) (PDF)

 

If you want hard copy, try the Orderline at St. Austell (0845 9000 404) or your local Enquiry Centre.

[DANIELLESMUM]

Thanks for the link Megain (Great name BTW )

 

My Code of Practice 26 form arrived on Saturday morning. I haven't attempted to fill it in yet because I am trying to find the original letters which said I owed them money so that I can quote proper info and dates\amounts etc.

 

All my hubby knows from his phone call is that we owe £4.5K (or thereabouts from 04/05) so I need some proper paperwork to hand, and I never paid that much attention at the time because we were told it was all OK and we owed nothing, until now.....

 

Thanks to all the people on this thread and indeed on this site, who have really helpful. : )

[tigga_1961]

If anyone has rung tax credits with more than one change of circs, the system goes awry, it can only handle one change at a time:o so if you tell them your income has gone up/down and say a change of address the system will only recognise one change, thus if the address is input first the income details wont change, thus if you dont read award notices correctly this will leave an overpayment or underpayment. crass system i know i used to be an advisor now retired due to stress(i wonder why) so if anyone reading this has multiple change of circumstances do it one a day, it limits the damage regarding over/underpayments but damages the enviroment when you recieve a tree or two in the post.

[lynzfa]

hi,i alway checked my taward notices when they came to make sure everything was right so how am i meant to know that i have been overpaid.its not up to us to work out how much we should get thats what they are meant to do.not that they do it very well

[tigga_1961]

a claimant would only become overpaid if they earnt more during the tax year than they had origianally quoted at the beginning of the year, the majority of overpayment arose initially because tax credits was/is based on the previous years income, so in your own interests as soon as you know what you are earning for the current year let the tax office know, ie give it your best guestimation pref with a little over for overtime etc, then the likelyhood is you will be underpaid at the end of they year and have a bit extra to come to you. keep an eye on your payslips etc so you know exactly what you are earning and if you look like goin over your income amount change it asap. If you have done all this and gone overpaid get copies of all award notices and double check the details. or go somewhere like the cab for advice.

[dannygr27]

Hi All,

 

I was given a direct line number to the collections dept, if you call the call centre they note it in a book and its delt with as and when they can get to it !

 

 

01296 737751 miss greenwood

Hope this will help someone

Sam

[aggiesma]

i received a notice for recover of tax credits, almost £7000 and i was looking for some advise i do not believe i owe this money, but trying to trawl through the tax system is like trying to pull my own teeth out, i just can't do it. i am getting scare now in case i have to seel my house to repay this money, any advise would be great,

thanks

[aggiesma]

thanks for that i will get on to them stright away, wish me luck.

[sreeja]

This happened to one of my relative in the last year.Then only i am aware about it.I heard that if the Inland Revenue tells that we have been paid too much tax credit in the previous year, or that we are being paid too much during the current year, they will usually ask us to pay this back.But we may not have to pay it back if,it was caused by their mistake and we had no reason to think that your award was wrong, or paying back the money would cause you hardship.

[Cactiphile71]

I can't believe that our taxes fund such incompentance,

the amount of money wasted just from the amount of incorrect paper

work they send, never mind all the incorrect payments and fraud that

goes on must be astounding.

 

I'm still not sure whats going with money I owe them.

Last year in August my wife went from a low paying part time job to a higher paid one. Told them the day she changed job about the change in salary etc. And got a statement back saying you owe us £497.00 BUT

we will carry on paying you for the rest of the year £37 a month anyway.

 

I tried 3 times to talk sense into them to say, emm if you overpaid us when are you giving us more money, we don't want it, dont want to be more in debt. But the staff just said don't worry about it , it will get sorted at the end of the year.

 

Well we sent our end of year documents in during April with exactly the predicted salaires I told them in August. Not had anything back so far, but low and behold as well as the £37 paid this month, theres also a payment of £70 and a payment of £130.

 

I am holding my breath waiting for paperwork to explain what they think they are doing. In the meantime I suppose at least I'm getting interest on the money in my savings.

[Clareburgess]

Help. We moved to New Zealand back in October 2005. We dutifully told the tax credit people this in advance and again on the day we left. We then received a bill in 2006 to pay back 1600 pounds of overpaid tax credits which we did. We also had them confirm by phone that we were then straight with inland revenue for that account and would owe them nothing further (we have the name of the operator as they won't give anything in writing).

 

Now we are 2 years later and suddenly this morning receive a bill for nearly 4000 pounds owing from 2005 (a date prior to the bill we paid).

 

Given that they specifically told us that we were clear of debt to them is there any way we can get this reversed? Of course we no longer have the money as we now live month to month paying for a house and 2 children in a country which has few benefits.

 

Help, i'm beside myself with worry today as we only have until 2 december to come up with the money which really doesn't give us long to sort things out.

[tigerjo999]

how does one go about filing a subject data request re tax credits with hmrc?

 

we are just beside ourselves

[campaigner]

Another Tax Credit Casualty? Poor you! Look out for the user campaign on TV in March as there are a lot of us. You can get help here: Dispute - Step 2 where you can download a template and much more besides. Good luck - you can win this!

[campaigner]

Right, I am chancing my arm here, but in December I emailed a Moderator asking permission to advertise the National user group - Tax Credit Casualties - here. He was going to look into this for me. We are entirely unpaid volunteers who are all victims or ex-victims themselves. I have not heard back yet, but we are NOT a business, make no profit, are cross-party in our approach and are only looking to help people like those posting above. Do look at www.taxCC.org and make up your own mind about us. In early March we will be featured in "Dispatches" and the "Tonight" team has approached us, too. We are here to help ordinary, honest people have a fighting chance against the bureaucratic tax man. Please don't censor this link until the Moderators have discussed this because I have certainly done all I can to get this done legitimately. Just like the Consumer Action Group we are NOT rivals but allies - you fight the overcharging and oppressive banks whilst WE fight the uncaring, overpaying and oppressive Revenue! Ask those members who are also OUR memebers and they will confirm that we are completely genuine people (my day job is in social care...)

[tosh1]

subbing

[ricflairandy]

we were overpaid in 03/04, however as far as im aware havent been asked to pay anything back and at the moment get absolutly nothing.

 

we are only entitled to about a tenner a week anyway, but even so could do with that extra help.

[shannon1986]

Hi, I work for Tax Credits and yes i probably could get sacked for this but hey i thought id give you guys some help with Overpayments.

 

First thing to do is make a note of the tax year e.g. 2006-2007.

call the tax credit helpline and ask for the reason of the overpayment.

Then ask to check each tax year and if there are any further overpayments.

 

keep noting dates, amounts and reasons

 

Once you have all the information ask for an overpayment dispute form,

when you recieve the form you can dispute up to five overpayments for differnt tax years, complete the form and send it back.

 

This will put a hold on any recovery proceedings and there is also a chance (although not likely) the dispute will be found in your favour.

 

at this point i would keep a note of the response for each tax year and reasons.

 

Unless you have extra evidence to support a dispute again if unsucessful the decsion would remain the same.

 

If this is the case i would contact my local MP giving reasons you feel you should not have to repay and list all overpayments in tax years outstanding. ( in most cases when an MP gets involved the overpayment will be written off.)

 

failing this you do have the right to appeal.

 

contact the tax credit helpline and request an appeals leaflet, an appeal is a very long drawn out process as are all of the above meathods but if you follow this you should not have to repay a penny.

 

hope this helps, and please be nice on the phone,

its understandable you will be annoyed at having an overpayment but the advisors will be more likely to help you in more detail.

 

you could also ask the address for a subject access request you can get recordings documents and supporting evidence by writing to the SAR team.

[hsbcfiddled]

Can they claim repayments beyond six years?

[dx100uk]

yes

 

start your own thread

 

this one is many years old

 

dx