To expect HMRC not to pursue tax credit overpayments from 18 years ago

[saveforthat]

My friend ( whose youngest child is 28) has received a letter from HMRC today saying she owes them £2000 from 2005. She actually remembers this and has kept some paperwork, they made a mistake and she has an apology letter from them from 2006 but who else keeps records so long? Has anyone else had to deal with something like this?

No I'm not clear again. I thought HMRC are now saying their apology was wrong and she does owe them!!!

https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/debt-management-and-banking/dmbm595080

Does that link help?

And your friend should definitely submit a SAR as PP suggested to obtain copies of the original letters.

Your posts are very unclear.
Why would they try to pursue a non existent debt twice?

Can she ask for a ‘mandatory reconsideration’ and provide the letter they sent her as proof they said they made a mistake?

This is true, as gross as it maybe. Same with student loans, I overpaid £2,300 because they couldn’t get their act together - I took out as student loan for my Masters this year and they said: “Oh actually we owe you!” 15 years and not a peep from them, even when I questioned back then if I should still be paying. My email address is the same, so is my mobile number. No excuse for not being able to contact me at any point subsequent. Government is Teflon in either direction. But if she has the original letter excusing her then she should be able to fight it with some help - even if the debt isn’t excused she could work out a reasonable repayment schedule, not a lump sum. Best to talk to Citizens Advice.

Tax credits did some major fuck ups at this time (18 years ago).

I spent a few years quite borderline and decided not to claim.

I have friend who's correspondence has been, we over paid you, no we didn't, you owe us £5,000, oh hang on maybe we owe you £500. Most then got told a moratorium was in place and it was a truce.

I'd be very pissed off if someone came at me asking for a repayment on a debt that hadn't been mentioned for 18 years.

Have these debts been passed on from HMRC to a debt collector?

Sounds to me like someone at HMRC is trying to go after some low hanging fruit.

Imagine advertising so clearly that you didn't read the op. Embarrassing.

A very similar thing happened to a friend of mine a few months back. Wasn’t as long ago as 18 years but they did have the paperwork that confirmed that they didn’t owe anything. When they provided that this time round they got a “sorry our records are not updated, sorry for the inconvenience”

In their case they were told that records got so messed up during lockdown that they are revisiting old cases. Who knows if that’s true

I've had a letter from a debt collection agency about an alleged overpayment of tax credits. I know I've only claimed correctly, so I've written to HMRC requesting a breakdown of dates and amounts. No reply yet, in three weeks. If it dates back that far I doubt I'll still have the paperwork. The link above seems to say that if they don't chase it within six years, they can't ask for it, is that right?

Why, they said it was an error.

The six year thing doesn't apply.

I've never worked for HMRC but my assumption would be that it was some automated letter based on an old database of debtors. I would write back with a photocopy of the apology for mistake letter and say politely oh sorry it appears there is an error on your system and actually I don't owe any money, goodbye.

I know UC isn't great but tax credits were just crap for this sort of thing.

"I was just thinking even if someone did owe them money why was it not followed up until 18 years later."

Yep...you'd think they would have done this earlier!

Similar happened to me, in 2014. I told them I had started working, they continued to pay me. I rang them 5 times and told them I was working, and felt the amount they were sending me was too high, they insisted it was correct. Turns out it was their error. When I rang them to inform them my son was no longer in nursery and I didn’t feel I was entitled to anything anymore, they realised they had over paid me by £2800. Luckily I kept the name of everyone I spoke to, and when and they wrote off most of it - I had to repay about £500.

TC were an absolute shit show.

I stated claiming in 2004 when DC1 was born. In 2005/2006 ish they told us they'd overpaid and that we had to pay back the overpayment. Fine. Except they'd overpaid us by an entire years worth of TC, effectively saying we weren't entitled to anything. Which wasn't true.

They reduced future payments to get it back.
It took about 3 years and a billion phone calls (to what was then a premium rate number iirc) to finally work out what had gone wrong. Someone had put into the system that I gave birth, and started a job on the same day! The man admitted that must be their mistake. But it was apparently too late to do anything about it. I wasn't allowed to claim them back.

I might have been had I not recently become a single parent who's MH was in the bin meaning I just didn't have the mental energy to pursue it.

Tell her to set up a payment plan with them a £1 a week seems fair

Amazed at how many people don't read the thread - she doesn't owe them anything and they have acknowledged this!

Both the writing and the comprehension skills on this thread are absolutely fucking abysmal.

But it's highly likely she does owe money which means it will have to be paid back

Seems some people just don't want to be helped no matter how patiently or kindly you try! 😂

What ?

Not surprised.

Tax credits were a mess.

Definitely SARS them.

Tax credits are the worst they told me I owed them money then they sent a letter saying I didn't and that they owed me then that letter was apparently wrong and I did owe them. They now take it of me monthly until iv paid them back.