DWP Letter Saying I Owe £2078 - Tax Credits Overpayment From 2013 - UC Overpayment from 2021

[blondebubbles]

If the overpayment is for 2012/13, it is highly unlikely you are still within the time limit for disputing or appealing the decision.

 

A dispute needs to be made within 3 months of the decision. An appeal within 30days. This can be extended in some cases to 13months.

 

It is likely you received the decision between April 2013 and August 2013. Check your final award for 2012/13 for the date of issue.

 

The original tax credit claim form only asks for your previous years income. So when you made your initial claim, that's what it would have been based on.

 

You would then have received a tax credit award notice showing what they used to calculate your claim. On this award it tells you to call if anything has changed or is incorrect, including income.

 

When did you receive your initial award notice?

Then when did you notify them of the income of £37,000?

If notified promptly, did you receive a new award notice confirming the change had been updated? If not did you contact them again?

[blondebubbles]

Would only be beneficial if still in time for dispute/appeal

[blondebubbles]

From what you explained before, it sounds like you should be disputing, not appealing.

 

I would also have to disagree with the advice from dx100uk. If you wait until you get a response from the SAR you will most likely end up out of time.

[blondebubbles]

It depends on what you already said on your dispute and what their response was.

[blondebubbles]

What was the reason for them rejecting your dispute?

[blondebubbles]

So if you still disagree you need to comment on how they have failed to meet their responsibilities and how you have met yours.

 

You want to focus on how you reported the income but they appear to have used the wrong figure. The only issue with this is that you get sent an awards notice after a change is made and if anything on the notice is wrong you are expected to report that to them so they put the responsibility back on you.

 

You could explain that you made a SAR and that the call vital to your dispute was not provided.

 

As for copies of awards notices, the helpline can issue these.

 

Another thing to note though is that if you have an increase in income mid year you can end up overpayment even if you tell them straightaway due to the way tax credits is calculated.

[blondebubbles]

I refer to your letter dated 21/11/2015 regarding an overpaymenticon and that I have to pay this back.

 

(This date cannot be correct.)

 

I am writing to request a review of this decision. I made a Subject Access Request on DD/MM/YY and I have received all of the paperwork and award notices relating to this claim period. I was also supplied with recordings of some of the phone calls I made however calls dated X Y Z have not been provided.

 

On 03/04/2013 I called to inform HMRC about the changes to my employment and income. I estimated earnings as £38,000 for myself and £10,000 for my partner.

 

I don’t know the figure I gave over the phone because the vital call recording is missing from the cds I received. There is a paper record of all the calls I made and the evidence is there to prove I made the phone call on that day. Below is the notes made by HMRC against this call.

 

(You can't say here that you don't know what figure you provided. Your argument is that you gave the correct figures and this was not acted upon. You later say the adviser didn't do their job properly but if you don't know what figures you gave them then you cannot state this. Instead say:

 

"The vital phone call that would confirm this was not provided as part of my Subject Access Request. However the paper record of all calls made does confirm I made this phone call as per the note below".

 

[ 03/04/2013 NR19 Claimant confirmed new employment details. System updated customer or partner started work 01-04-2013 CY income change updated on NTC, total HH income 19400 ]

 

The adviser I spoke to that day appears to have entered the wrong earnings for that year. I did not give them a total income of £19400 and I am unsure how this figure was arrived at.

 

I have met my responsibilities by notifiying HMRC right away of the changes, the paper phone record proves this. Your department has failed to meet their responsibilities by not updating this information accordingly and as such I request that this overpayment be written off.

 

(You will need to mention why you did not meet your responsibilities in checking your award notice after it was sent to you)

 

Just another thing to check, you said in your OP that the overpayment relates to 2012/13 tax year and that the relevant call was on 03/04/13 and that your change of job was only on 01/04/13.

 

Can you confirm that all these dates are correct as if you only changed job 4 days before the end of the year that couldn't caused such an increase in income.

[blondebubbles]

It would not have been possible for you to provide them with the 2013/14 income until after 6th April 2013. You'd need to find a call after that date to prove you updated the income correctly.

 

You couldn't have updated this on 3rd April 2013 as this was still in the 2012/13 year.

[blondebubbles]

So what figure was this? They don't make figures up so it must have come from somewhere.

 

I'm sorry to say but so far it sounds like you failed to give them an estimate for 2013/14 (as you say you weren't aware of the tax year dates). These aren't just for tax credits, they are based on the tax year dates for income tax purposes.

[blondebubbles]

That call is irrelevant. No matter what you said about your 2013/14 income on that call, they couldn't do anything about it as the tax year had not started. They cannot update income for a year until the year starts.

 

The system goes down on 6th April to be upgraded for the new tax year. From then you could have updated 2013/14 income but not before 6th April.