Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Money matters

Find financial and money-saving discussions including debt and pension chat on our Money forum. If you're looking for ways to make your money to go further, sign up to our Moneysaver emails here.

Original poster

DON@T SHOUT BUT TAX CREDIT HELP NEEDED PLEASE!!!!!

39 replies

jamboure · 19/08/2005 19:25

Ok got a letter today saying we have been overpaid by 840.00.

Phoned the number to arrange repayment to ask how this can be when we told them our salary and at the end of the year there was a difference in salary.

Mine was £6000 lower than i expected. was told "i dont know much about tax credits just collect the overs" but i believe it's an error.

SO

do i pay up - £79 per month for 12 months and wait and see if it does get scrapped like they say they will on the news?

I am scared of owing money to inland revenue though what will happen to me?

OP posts:
colditz · 19/08/2005 19:28

They will tell you when they want it paying back, or they will take it off this year's award.

They have taken my overpayment off this year's award

MarsLady · 19/08/2005 19:31

there's a website that helps you see what you are entitled to called www.entitledto.comentitledto.com

hth

You can do the calculator thing then talk to the IR, which you'll need to do I think

MarsLady · 19/08/2005 19:32

oops let me try that again

MarsLady · 19/08/2005 19:32

entitledto.com

Original poster
jamboure · 19/08/2005 19:35

I asked to have it deducted from this years they said it cant be done

i all honesty if they dont i will forget to pay it and really still dont know how this has happened.

am i worrying over nothing?

OP posts:
Kidstrack2 · 19/08/2005 19:36

They usually take the overpayment back in instalments at 25% off your annual award and the further 75% from future years. Thats what they have done with me anyway!

colditz · 19/08/2005 19:37

They can bloody do it! They have done for me!

Socci · 19/08/2005 19:47

Message withdrawn

expatinscotland · 19/08/2005 19:50

You have to pay it back. That's the way the IR works. It's like council tax, you have to pay it up even if you're in dispute w/them.

Go to your CAB and IMMEDIATELY ask for appeal forms. Believe me, they see a lot of this. Complain via email to the Adjudicator and write your MP.

This seems to be a near daily occurance here on mumsnet, despite folks having informed the TCO of changes in a timely fashion.

In the future, if you phone them, make a record of the day and the time you called and get the name of the person you spoke with. Or, what I do, do EVERYTHING via registered post and keep a copy of what you sent them.

Socci · 19/08/2005 19:56

Message withdrawn

expatinscotland · 19/08/2005 19:56

Socci
You're not far off the mark. They cocked up to the tune of about £2b.

TC's £2b Cock Up

Socci · 19/08/2005 19:56

Message withdrawn

expatinscotland · 19/08/2005 19:58

Nope. You still have to pay it back until your appeal goes through. If it's upheld, THEN they'll pay you back the money. Until them, however, it's pay up for their errors.

We're currently in the middle of an appeal involving a Welfare Rights Advisor, our MP and the Adjudicator's people.

They ballsed up and assigned my husband, who was a SAHD the entire time we claimed, Disabled Person's Working Tax Credit. When he had no employer. They also have him on JSA. When he's never been on it in his life.

Socci · 19/08/2005 20:01

Message withdrawn

expatinscotland · 19/08/2005 20:09

We have stacks of letters. ALL recorded delivery. It took them an entire year to change the errors. Funny, they processed our address change straightaway!

Now they're saying we've been overpaid by £1900.

They left us high and dry on a wage of £13,500 - gross. For three people. And I'm nearly 6 months pregnant. That works out to poverty line after tax and NI. Until DH got this part-time job, we racked up debt paying for things like nappies and food. I had to see a doctor for panic attacks and be prescribed tranquilisers.

We'd have been better off on the dole. At least then we wouldn't have had £631 worth of rent and council tax a month.

I had to get a second job and DH had to get an evening job picking up hire cars and valeting them for a car hire company.

Socci · 19/08/2005 20:19

Message withdrawn

expatinscotland · 19/08/2005 20:23

I'm starting to gather research on this fiasco. What burns me up is that SO many of the most vulnerable people have been screwed over by this. People who were a hair's breadth from ruin.

I've read tales on this board of people unable to pay their childcare and even getting eviction notices due to tax credit foul ups.

Also there's an employer on this board who paid her nanny's credits, as compelled by law, but has the IR refunded her money? Yeah, right!

PeachyClair · 19/08/2005 21:09

We lsot our house partly due to tax credits

Basically, Dh lost his job suddenly when I was 37- ish weeks PG, and on maternity leave (Tax Credits suggested I return to work until the birth!). We had to take DH's former boss to tribunal as he kept all DH's wages. Anyway, we were broke, as you can imagine! We weren't well off anyway, and we had a period of begging of family whilst income support / tax credits battled over who should pay us (both denied liability). Tax Credits paid us in the end as I was employed- we just phoned one day and happenned to get someone who knew their job!

Fast forward six months, DH gets a job- hurrah! I'm still off work because of the job I had (a lot of child protection work which I felt emtionally unable to deal with at that point. Our money was cut off immediately- I had exhausted my Maternity benefits, Dh had to work a month before getting a penny, and tax credits now classified our higher payments when we were jobless as an 'overpayment' and stopped our credits with immediate effect. We couldn't pay our mortgage or bills, DH's income was low, we couldn't rectify the balance even when he was paid (my employers went under at this point so I had no job) and eventually we had to sell our home to avoid bankruptcy. I can't see us ever affording a home of our own again now, even when we are both working , looks like we are renting for ever.

expatinscotland · 19/08/2005 22:09

Peachy
That is beyond shocking! My heart goes out to you. We will also never be able to afford to even rent a house, much less own one, but I can only imagine how it would feel to have it and lose it.

I only became a permanent resident in 2003, shortly before we first claimed for tax credits as a couple. My husband, a UK national, tells me that before that the credits were administered by another government body, and that he never had any problems with that (when he was single he got Disabled Person's Tax Credit).

Who's idea was it to change it?

You know it's being changed again. Instead of WTC coming from your employer, HM Revenues & Customs is supposed to pay them directly.

Socci · 19/08/2005 22:32

Message withdrawn

morocco · 19/08/2005 22:35

I'm not surprised so many people end up in debt having just experienced the system myself. I keep getting paid random amounts of money - eg this month 170 quid on 13th then 160 quid on the 15th then the amount I'm actually supposed to get on the 18th - same last month. I am looking forward to phoning them up to say I'm not working after this week as hopefully this will get them off my back. Sounds strange to complain about #getting# money but it's just too stressful not knowing how much of it is really mine to spend

Caligula · 19/08/2005 22:37

Wankers. The other day I phoned them and the woman promised to send me the sheets on how to calculate your tax credit award. That was almost 10 days ago now. Nothing's arrived.

It's like it's some big secret. (Perhaps it is?)

BadgerBadger · 20/08/2005 02:02

£3,000

That's how much they think I owe them. I'd love to swear....but I wont!

Letters have been going back and forth for the last year about this. Part of the amount, I definitely don't owe them and part of it is what they kept paying me after we sent information to them about changes of circumstance, relentlessly, again and again, so yes I do owe that, but didn't ask for it in the first place.

I've spent ages on the phone to them but to no avail, I've got dyscalculia and I find it difficult to follow what they say (not that I believe what they say is of any use anyway!) and so I also find their letters (statements) almost indecipherable.

Then there are the letters they say they have sent...which they haven't. They wont reduce my current payments to (start to) balance the amount out either .

The course of action I have decided on is to save what I do owe. I will wait until the last moment to pay them just in case either they come to their senses and realise they are wrong, or come to their senses and bin the TC system.

I have to wonder how much it costs them in staff and premises for their 'Overpayment Unit'? The very fact that they need a whole unit dedicated to rectifying their own mistakes, speaks for itself really!

BadgerBadger · 20/08/2005 02:04

Ooooops, that turned into quite a rant and it wasn't very constructive in terms of advice for anyone else, sorry!

BadgerBadger · 20/08/2005 02:04

But, £3,000!!! FFS!