Children Tax credits will not believe my son exisits!!

[zizilee]

I started to claim tax credits in 2011 when became a single mum as ex husband left. I have had no end of trouble with them whilst they are happy to accept my 2 daughters exist they will not accept my son does!!!!! I have sent passport, birth certificate which they say is on thir system etc they paid from Aug 2011-April 2012 for him then said prove it again, rang and they confirmed all details on their system then stopped paying 06-04-2012..... and then said they had overpaid me and are taking the money for him back !!! he is 7!!
Now going throught the complaints system as thats all they would do (offered to send them passport and birth cert again!!!) but apparently this is what i have to do.......Any advice??

Nope. Sounds like it's an IT blitz so all you can do is complain and be very patient, if things don't progress contact your MP as they can fast track
Good luck!

This sounds very odd.

Are you getting child benefit for him?

I suggest you should go to your local Citizens Advice bureau with all the letters you have received and ask for their help. They can often spot what the problem might be from the paperwork or from talking to HMRC.

Any possibility that your ex is trying to claim for him?

I would go to your local mp for their help too.

There's nothing that a CAB can do other than help the client go through HMRC's complaint procedure. It's be' a waste of time.

You are not the first!

My best friend had a similar problem. Just one dd and they decided when she was about 6 that she didn't exist and started to attempt to reclaim all cb etc.
friend went in with dd several times. Phoned a thousand different depts and has no end of trouble, exacerbated by the fact that she recently lost everything in a fire and couldn't produce birth certificate!

Was sorted eventually. Keep phoning, follow the complaints procedure. It is a pain in the bum but as long as your ds does exist you have nothing to worry about

"There's nothing that a CAB can do other than help the client go through HMRC's complaint procedure. It's be' a waste of time."

That's not quite true. Often a CAB advisor can spot what the cause of the problem is - that's not the same as being able to correct it but it helps to get things sorted speedily with HMRC if you can explain to them what error they are making, rather than just putting in a complaint and saying sort it out.

Also CAB advisors have a special advisors only helpline to HMRC which can sometimes produce better results than the public helpline.

Local MP?

I get child benefit for him etc ex cannot claim as his income way to high it's the fact they admit to having all the scanned in docs in front of them that gets me !!
Apparently will get a call by the 31st October to start complaints procedure so will wait until then and the proceed to MP if it becomes necessary .... The fact that they are taking over £70 back a week from my payment makes me really annoyed !!