To wish I'd never claimed tax credits

[StillCantDecideOnaUsername]

I only started claiming a few years ago when my income dropped as I was on maternity leave. I am now paying back one overpayment of 3k at £200 a month and currently disputing another overpayment of 6k. The amount of financial and emotional stress the situation is causing makes me wish I never claimed in the first place and tried to manage without. I have done a lot of research on TC overpayments and it seems that it is so common, surely this just goes to show that the system is not working!!!

a. every time i see someone moaning on a thread on here about low paid workers not taking inconsistent intermittent extra hours offered to them im going to link this thread to a future one.

b. funny how the papers arent as interested in this thread as they are others on here.

I gave the TC fuckers all our info many times but email and post yet they still claim an error was made and we owe them a grand back

And more....

Similar situation. I had a single claim for 3 years... I told them when my partner moved into the house. They told me, that they closed my single claim and will send a new form through. We never filed a new claim. They continued to pay me the amount of my single claim. Every month I'd tell them about the change, every month the same story. 4 months later, had a letter telling me that they have evidence that someone is living with me ... and I had to supply all bank statements, council tax, ...
Anyway was found "guilty", did appeal- still guilty as I didn't make sure they stopped the payment by supplying my partners income details. (There was no claim as we earned to much and didn't think it was necessary.)
Had to pay the 2k fine & 1.5k overpayments back. Luckily for us, I saved the overpayments. Being fined for this is harsh and wrong. The system is truly f**d up.

thank you! I am stil very worried about contacting them, it might rock the boat, I am worried that they will demand the full amount back in one go. I will have to work up the courage!

@misscph1973

Hi

Hey it's OK. They won't demand it all at once. What you owe is a separate issue. Your monthly instalments will stay the same. Tell them you are happy to keep paying the instalments as you are doing, but you wish to close your claim, and do not wish to receive anymore 'renewal of your tax credits' claims.

Good luck and I hope you manage to pay off what you owe. I am not even sure how much we owe now. About £500 probably!!!

They never let us know, or sent a statement or anything!!! If I want to know, I have to phone them!

They are twats and it's a disgrace that they allow people to get into such financial difficulty. However, when you call them to offer to pay, they are more than happy to accept instalments. (Not sure how long is the longest they give you, but ours is 30 months.)

As someone mentioned earlier, I don't 'get' how they can't put tax credits with PAYE. Like let's say your weekly income is £288 and they figure you can have £44 tax credits a week (based on that figure.) If your wage rises to £298 one week, then drop the tax credits to £34 that week. If it's £300, drop the tax credits it to £32 that week IYSWIM. Surely it can't be that hard! They do it with national insurance, income tax, your pension etc....

This thread is horrendous as it has so many horror stories, but it's also brilliant, as it is providing huge support and hugs, and letting people know they are not alone.

Agree with @HelenaDove, funny how this thread is not being picked up by the papers/media, but they're all over a a thread entitled 'I think my husband has spent the night with his 18 year old secretary.'

Twats.

Having read through everyone's horrifying experiences with tax credits I am starting to wonder is there really nothing anyone can do to expose this appalling system? A journalist? MP? Petition? Something to highlight how much financial and emotional strain SO many people are put under due to a system that is doing the opposite of what it's supposed to do?

We were overpaid 4k. Had to pay back £100 a month for ages.

Also wish I had never bothered.

I was encouraged to claim right back when the TC scheme first started. Mega shock when I got asked to pretty much full amount back. Might as well have not bothered claiming.

Bluelonerose I just gave in as well in the end. The endless conversations I had with the advisors, letters sent, CAB visits - I'd have honestly got the same result having the same conversation with a fucking brick wall!

Another one here. Poor husband on phone for hours trying to sort it. Such a waste of time.

We were overpaid by £2700. Estimated income for year was £15k (in April)then husband went for a big promotion got it in the September and I got a job after being a student in the December. Our new income of £30k by the following April meant we were not entitled to ANY tax credits that year.
So the £70 a week we had received from the April to the September when payments stopped all had to be repaid. (Even though we clearly needed them at the time)
They wanted £200 a month, told them we couldn't afford it and spoke to their debt management team now pay £25 a month for 10 years only 6 more to go

@Summercat, I hope you are right! I am warming to contacting them due to this thread. But I am still waiting for the letter confirming the new payment plan, it was only last week that I rang the payment line. When I think what a relief it was to get both overpayments on my existing payment plan, I am thinking that making them stop sending me renewals would probably be a goo idea for my general mental health ;)

FYI, we got 7 years to pay back the over payment (the nasty woman did make me cry, so it was the least she could do!), so it is possible to get a long term plan. But it's probably in proportion to how much you were overpaid combined with your finances, and who you talk to - some of them are obviously very "ambitious". I can't actually remember how much my overpayment was, I must have blocked it out, but I do know when my last payment is - March 22, 2022!

I got TC last year when I got made redundant but I worried the whole time that it was wrong! It seems to be impossible to work out your own figures so will Universal Credit not be better if it's real time?

Reading through this thread actually makes me feel sick.

I too feel ill every time a brown envelope comes through the door.

I'm sometimes wondering whether it's even worth having their £50 a week (all of which goes towards my childcare costs) or whether I should just tell them now to do one. Because after my last huge overpayment, which is only just paid off, it does make me wonder whether they're doing it wrong again. The problem is, we do need it.

Agghhhhh.

I need to update my childcare costs this week as my son is doing 30 hours free and my daughter starts school ( but i work mine out pro - rata for the whole year so i could keep it the same though the holidays)

When my DD went to uni I let them know but unbeknown to me they carried on paying for her but stopped paying for her brother. I never noticed anything because I was getting was what I expected. Then I got a statement and realised they had deleted the wrong child so I phoned them and was told I had to repay hundreds. I queried it as it shouldn't have made any difference to the money. They insisted I had to repay the money I had been overpaid for DD and then would then look into my claim for my son, they said they couldn't just swap the names as they didn't know if the two figures would balance out. How could they not, they weren't going to pay me more for DD than DS were they? I was on the phone for about two hours and was ready to do murder and insisted I be put through to a manager. I was patronised and told not to worry as obviously the overpayment for DD was balanced by underpayment for son. I had been telling them that for 2 hours!!!!

So glad I never have to deal with them again.

I think MN should consider launching a campaign for the government to do something about the tax credit overpayment problems. The system is obviously so complicated that even the tax credit people get it wrong all the time.

We were overpaid 6k too :(

Never thought anything of it with 3 DC in full time nursery. We had to pay it back at £300 a month.

Fortunately we both received hefty pay rises at work or we'd have been screwed.

@misscph1973 This is a good idea. I'm pretty new to MN so not sure how to get MNHQ involved? Anyone else have any ideas on how to highlight this shocking system?

Something needs to be flagged up.

To anyone who has received these letters about over payment, do make sure you question it, check your earning for that tax year add up to their calculations, yes they can access these details themselves but as I found out, there computer system can mess this up ( my ex partners calculations were wrong, they had rolled over his earning from self employment from a previous tax year, then saying that he shouldn't have been receiving WTC, he never did any self employed work that year). Ask for them to explain their working out. I'm guessing so many people don't question their workings out and are paying back huge amounts of money that they don't owe.

We had an £1800 over payment due to dh being unemployed then getting a job and even though I gave them the correct expected income they decided to use the amount he got in job seekers! I didn't notice when the final award came in so it was viewed as my fault even though they used information in that did not come from us.
Dh is currently on the phone to them as Ds1 (16) is down as "not being a child for tax credit purposes" despite updating that he is staying at school to do 5th year and me getting told by a very rude woman last week that they had the information and it would change on the 1st September. We are £40 short this week due to getting the 2 child element not 3!
I refuse to phone them again and Dh has agreed to deal with them in future. I have cried and been angry with frustration as well as complying with a demand from concentrix for a years worth of payslips and bank statements and never heard anything back from them after I received my paperwork back . I have decided its not good for my mental health as I generally come of the phone shaking and in a pool of sweat!

I was apparently overpaid £3k in 3 months... obviously I'm querying this.

In the meantime, I completed the income and expenditure on the HMRC website, showing that I didn't have any spare cash and they froze all payments for a year.

I owe 2 grand. They are taking a lot off me every month.

To do it over a longer period I have to show proof of all my incomings and outgoings and they will want bank statements.

It was my fault though. I hold my hands up to that. However, they didn't give me any warning that they were taking that much. I just got it cut in almost half one week and when I rang they told me why. I didn't get the letter until two weeks after so I had no time to prepare.

They also stopped paying for my son for a few weeks due to him leaving school. They know he is going to college but they won't pay for him again until the 9th so we had a few weeks without the money for him and with the repayments.

My over payment was apparently over 10k. I took it as far as I could but they wanted so much paper work I didn't have as it was years ago and they said I'd run out of time to appeal it. I'm still pissed at paying them back as I know I didn't even have 10k off of them. I pay 10 quid a month.

I was told my a woman at our local CAB that you can ask HMRC to defer repayment of overpayments if your outgoings are much higher than your income. She said she'd just sorted it out for her sister. Good luck. I know how it is. Our "overpayment" amounts seems to change from month to month - even though our income hasn't. We're about to go onto UC which seems even more confusing tbh.

So mumsnetters, if we were to put together a petition what would we ask for?
Waiving off all the debts due to HMRC own's fault?
I think it is a huge scam. I am not sure what is the scale of people who have been 'done' huge, judging by the amount of responses here!

Hmrc are the worst. I recently had a nearly £4000 overpayment wiped off and giving compensation.
It took a year of abuse from their employees though.
They wouldn't accept any payment plan, even with income and expenditure they wouldn't take my money. In fact they started putting money back in my account and then said they couldn't stop and I just had to wait and deal with the next overpayment. Apparently they can stop when you say you'll hold them liable and don't give permission for another penny to touch your account.
Adjudicator office fixed mine in the end but I will never claim tax credits again would rather live in a cardboard box after what they put me through!
If you don't agree with the overpayment op you can always put in a SAR.
I haven't read all comments sorry if already been suggested.