To withdraw overpayment from HMRC tax free childcare, to pay fee?

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The HMRC have overpaid me in my tax free childcare account. The transactions show I paid in an amount multiple times but my bank shows this transaction only once.

so they’ve ultimately topped up each of these payments and it means I have £1100+ rather than £190 odd that I was expecting..

the thing is, every time I try to make the payment to nursery now it’s saying it failed and to try again later.. but today is the deadline and I’ll be charged if I don’t pay today and o can’t afford to be charged.

WIBU to withdraw the money, pay the nursery fee, then keep the rest of the money in an account to pay them back?

I’ve tried ringing HMRC but I cannot get through to them, I’m stuck on hold for ages and I don’t have time to sit on the phone for ages waiting 😩

will I get in trouble for withdrawing it?

Why has your payment to nursery failed? Do you not have enough money in your account to pay it? What would you have done if HMRC hadn't overpaid?

Pretty sure you can't just withdraw money from the tax free childcare account.

I’ve not used tax free as a parent however I’m guessing you can’t withdraw the whole amount including what they have topped up with as it could possibly be seen as fraud. Is it even possible to withdraw money?

I think you can withdraw what you've paid in, but you can't withdraw any top ups.

You can withdraw, but you can only withdraw what you pay in, so you can’t withdraw the top up amount.. but as the system shows I’ve paid in £900odd this is what it will allow me to withdraw..

I paid in around £150 (and already had a few pounds left in there) so that should have topped me up to £190ish (figures are rough) which is what the childcare is costing - I don’t have £190 in my bank to now pay nursery - so I’m wondering if I can withdraw the sum from my childcare account; to pay the nursery then try to get hold of someone at HMRC to explain what I’ve done and pay back the remainder (I assume they’ll take off the 20% top up then as I would have paid the full amount from the withdrawal money)

@Cigarettesaftersex1 im not sure, there’s definitely enough in there (even without the overpayment) but it keeps saying they’re unable to set up the payment at this time and to try again later. But it seems like it’s going to let me withdraw (although I haven’t actually fully tried as unsure if this is ok to do or not)

You can but when HMRC sorts it all out and takes the money back you will lose the 20% top up because you didn’t pay the £190 through TFC. So it’ll cost you £38.

I’d be inclined to ask nursery for a payment extension (email them a screenshot of the failed payment) and keep trying to ring HMRC.

@Darkstar4855 ah thank you, that makes sense. I’ll email nursery and see what they say.

I think the system is generally having issues. I tried to pay in money yesterday and it kept failing before I even got to the right page. So you're probably not the only person with problems with it.