Loss or tax credits when switching to Universal credit

[Sheptonfuchsias]

Ever since my son was born we received Tax credits. Every year without fail we would get a letter telling us we had overpaid and they would claw some back out of our payments. 

 

Every year we would fill in our renewal pack and send it back to them. 

 

In April 2017  I took a job up I. Scotland for the summer. I was there merely 3 weeks wheb I had an accident and fell off a rock breaking my wrist and 2 ribs.

 

At this point we were on tax credits but they had reduced the payments to a miniscule amount because we were earning a certain amount and the rest was taken in what we supposedly owed. 

 

Because I couldn't work I had to sign on and was placed on UC. 

 

I was off work for 6 weeks. Just long enough to get my first payment. Then told them I was fit to work again. They closed my UC account and stopped all payments. 

 

My son left school that August but went onto further education. We told HMRC so we could still claim his child benefit. 

 

We heard nothing from the government about tax credits so just assumed we wouldn't be eligible. We moved house a couple of times but received tax statements etc from the government. 

 

This morning I received a letter saying they had made an attachment of earnings for £800. I rang the recovery team who told me it was for overpayment of tax credits. 

 

So I rang the tax credits people to query it and they said all tax credits had been moved to Universal credit and to contact them as to what had happened. 

 

I rang the UC office who told me that indeed my tax credits had been merged with my UC but because I had declared I was fit to work they had closed my UC case.. In doing so all the tax credit payments ceased at the same time. 

 

I have since been working in a less well paid job and would have qualified for tax credits. 

 

So I have to now repay them £800 which they claim I owe yet have missed out on over 2 years tax credits because they stopped the payments the moment my UC stopped. If I hadn't broken my wrist we would have been eligible for tax credits but because I closed a case for UC I lost the whole entitlement. 

 

I'd this standard or am I missing something because to me I have lost 2 years worth of tax credits because of it 

 

They are very quick to find out where ykh live and your circumstances when you owe them money but the moment they owe you they claim they can't do anything about it. 

 

If I owe the money then fair enough but likewise if they owe me surely they should likewise repay me... 

[honeybee13]

Have you asked them for copies of their calculations of what they say you owe?

 

HB

[brassnecked]

Unclebulgaria might be able to give a pointer on this, as the alleged OP has been passed to UC tax Credits will say all paperwork with UC, UC will say no just debt amount passed over, so you go round in circles, had a couple of cases like this where due to the actual wage and family makeup, they were underpaid but somehow tax credits  made an overpayment up when they recently migrated  to UC due to a third child.

[unclebulgaria67]

A UC claim is not closed as you are fit to work. It might have closed as your employment earnings meant you received a monthly statement showing NIL award.  It is then up to the claimant to reclaim UC if their earnings reduce enough to make them eligible to receive a UC payment.

 

Tax credits run by HMRC and UC run by DWP are totally separate. If you had a change of circumstances, you might have had to claim UC instead and the Tax Credits claim would have been stopped. Once on UC, there is no going back to Tax Credits.

 

A UC claim once started includes a Tax Credit type allowance. There is a Work allowance for people with Children or Limited Capability for Work. And there is an earnings taper.  Of course if your earnings are above a certain level, you might not receive any UC payment. UC for  some people is not as generous as the Tax Credits they previously had.

 

If you are not sure about the £800 tax credits debt, then look at the HMRC website for details of how to submit a subject access request.  Also register a mandatory reconsideration request with HMRC, which is an appeal, but ask them for a written statement of reason asking how the £800 was calculated and how the decision was reached.

 

No files are passed between HMRC and DWP. If you had a HMRC Tax Credits debt, HMRC would advise DWP Debt Management, just in case it was ever possible to collect the debt from benefit payments. DWP would only know basic details such as amount and type of debt. HMRC will hold all of the information.