Tax credit overpayment, not sure what to do!

[Drogon]

Hi all, I'm working myself up hugely over this and wonder if I could get some advice?

Two weeks we noticed 2 separate tax credit payments of £43 each. We assumed that (as our payment is usually £83 per week) it was our normal weekly payment just split up for some reason. This week DP has checked our online banking and last week we only received £43 TC on the Thirsday. He phoned up HMRC to find out what was going on and it turns out we owe them just under £300 from the year 2013/2014.

So, fair enough we owe them the money and will pay, but we didn't receive any letters explaining this or explaining what our new payments would be. We had to ask over the phone for a breakdown of payments and he could only tell us our payments for April and not when we'd go back to our usual amount.

I worked out next month we will be getting £186 less in TC than we'd usually get. I'm now in a state of panic because, whilst on paper we'll be ok to pay our bills, it will be a very very tight month.

The man from HMRC said that if it was a large overpayment we owed we would be able to put a plan in place to pay what we can afford. But £186 is a lot of money for us, we very rarely have anything left over at the end of the month!

I'm just wondering if it is worth ringing them up again to try and arrange paying back the overpayment over a longer period of time and being more comfortable this month? Or should be suck it up and pinch every penny and get by until our payments go back to normal?

I feel so stupid for not having anything in savings (currently have £6.02 in my savings account!) and really angry that we didn't get a letter from them. Apparently one was issued on the 10th of March but I've scoured our flat and can't find anything.

I'm so grateful we do get financial help but honestly I wish we earned enough not to need any help!

[MidnightVelvetthe5th]

Ah I had an overpayment as well, it always happens at the worst times! I phoned them & made an arrangement to pay it back over a year, they were flexible on amounts & I paid back £40 per month although they would have taken £20 per month if need be. Give them a call, I cant remember the department that I spoke to but the front desk passed me through.

As long as you don't ignore it, they will be fine :)

[AtSea1979]

As its nearly April are you sure its not what they owe you?

[Drogon]

Thank you Midnight it's reassuring that you were able to make a payment plan that suited you. Do you mind me asking if your overpayment was a fairly substantial one? I feel like because ours isn't a huge amount that they won't let me arrange to pay it back in smaller chunks, but it's always worth a try. My hours aren't always guaranteed at work (I was sent home after 2 hours yesterday instead of my normal 7 hour shift) so our income varies week by week.

Also do you think it would matter that they've already reduced our payments to recover the overpayment? I'm 100% sure I didn't receive a letter explaining everything because if I did I would have worked out our finances straight away and called them up!

Again thank you for replying!

[Drogon]

I'm pretty sure AtSea, DP noticed our TC payment last week was reduced and we had to phone HMRC to be told it was due to an overpayment they made to us

[MidnightVelvetthe5th]

It was about the same, £300. Its perfectly possible that you didn't get their letter yes.

I had no problems with talking through the payment options, they sent me a letter saying that x amount would be taken from my monthly payments & I thought shit I can't afford that, so I phoned them & set up a DD just for the overpayment & they recalculated my monthly award back to what it would have been if no debt existed.

My experience was that if you phone them & offer to make a payment arrangement then they are fine with what you propose, I'd explain that your income varies & tell them an amount that you are able to cope with & see what they say :)

[Drogon]

Phew, thank you Midnight I'll have to try not to get irate and huffy, I was in the background asking angry questions while DP was on the phone to them! I shall give them a call and see what they say!

[lavent]

I also arranged a payment plan for an overpayment of £400 ish. I pay £20/month as also on a v tight budget. This was fine with HMRC.

[lovetoskimum]

We had an overpayment of nearly £600, they are really helpful, I get paid weekly so just called them and set up a DD of £5 per week, take ages to pay off but do not have £600 to hand right now !! They are fine with repayment plans :) good luck :)