the council decion

[aristo]

Hi 
The councill stopped payng Housing Benefit on the beginning of May 2019 because of lack of income proof for 2018/2019. Tax year for that period finished one month before. According HMRC rules taxpayer has time to January 2020 to prepare his tax return ( what is just income proof for the tax year ). And the question is :
Could  the Council   require the income proof for the tax year before the deadline for presenting/preparing tax return for this tax year set by HMRC ? In my opinion rules set by HMRC are overrinding and nobody ( no institution, office or body) can require such a document - income proof for a year - before that deadline....

Edited July 1, 2019 by aristo
a mistake

[tomtom256]

HMRC and the LA are two different departments and can request whatever they need to process your benefits.

 

Provide whats requested or don't get any help.

 

They both use different legislation and do diferent roles.

[aristo]

Tomtom, thank you for your answer. I am accustomed to some order in law rules ..superior rule and lower rank rule. Such behavior seems to me as  kind of  "I am  over any law rule"... And that was the reason of my question. And I met a lot of such comments at local forums i different parts of Britain - the Council ( any Council) treats itself as something over the Law...Thank you

[unclebulgaria67]

So did you contact the Council after they sent you a letter in March 2019 asking for your employment earnings information ?

 

In the letter it would normally tell you the information that was accepted by the Council. And it would have said to contact the Council if you were unsure what they required.

 

If you failed to provide the information, they were entitled to remove the benefit.

 

No Council waits until January after end of tax year the previous April. They ask for details of your earnings that are available to you. They are not expecting the full information as you would provide HMRC by January 2020. The reason for HMRC allowing time, is that it can take time for a business to receive customers payments.

[aristo]

the situation is like that:

No formal letter sent by the Council included a specific date the income proof had to be provided to. It was kind of - " Please, deliver your income proof when you receive them (or have them) ". 

1.

The income proof for tax year 2017/2018 was provided to the Council in the beginning of October 2018. They did not apply this for the period 2017/2018. They waited until April 2019 to take it into account. 

2.

In April 2019 ( they waited since October 2018 to April 2019 to take it into account ) they sent a letter informing that this income proof for 2017/2018 will be implemented for the period starting from 5 of April 2019 and they presented a calculation.

3.

Month after that decision (21 May 2019) they stopped paying a benefit as - they said -  they did not have an income proof for 2018/2019. The letter presenting the reasons of suspending a benefit with a date 21 May 2019 was sent by them at the end of June 2019. 
 

 

Independently of what is written above - how it works?...

Income proof for a specific tax year (lets say 2018/2019 ) should be a base of benefit calcutaltion for that exactly year ( starting in April 2018) or they can apply it for any period with starting date - April 2019 ???

 In my opinion :

the income proof for a specific tax year should be applied exactly for that very period to calculate a benefit. Until they do not have a new one ( for the next tax year ) the last one (income proof) should be a base for prediction to calculate the benefit  for the next tax year. With a date of receiving the next income proof they should recalculate the benefit  for that very period. 

 

 

Edited July 3, 2019 by aristo