tax credits overpayment for whole year

[libertytrainers]

am so mad (at myself probably) but we have had tax credit statement back and we basically owe the whole of last year back. i really though i filled in the information correctly and used our P60s to let them know the correct amount but they say we should have estimated our income for this last financial year but i don't think i did this, did others? can't remember what the form looked like now.

anyway have to pay the whole lot back and rang the payback 'helpline' who got angry with me when i asked her how much we should pay back etc and she hung up on me, I was civil just confused by the whole affair. looks like we have to send a huge cheque back to HMRC as luckily dp got a small windfall from a pension scheme. am so upset that dp has to use this and feel like it was my fault for not taking more notice of the whole thing.

check the paperwork well people or it will bite you :(

If it looks like their mistake you can appeal.
If it is your mistake you can arrange a payment plan ove several months. Consider it as an unfortunate interest free loan.

From what I have read, as long as your offer of repayment is less than 10 years they don't ask for a detailed budget. In the same boat, but our fault, in a better position now to pay back slowly than would have been to take the drop in income last year.

that's helpful cumber, the woman on the phone seemed exasperated with my questions and didn't offer much advice other that kept asking me what i could afford to pay back. she said anything spread more than three years would be sent to a debt agency whatever that is.

Thats rubbish. I had 3 years of overpayment to pay back (about 4k). I phoned them and told them what I could afford to pay each month - they put me through to another team and it was agreed.

i will try again and hopefully get a kinder person who will be a little more patient. the letter says the overpayment is still to be confirmed, do they send another letter which would effectively be an invoice?

same here, we owed about £5k for one year due an oversight, I paid half of it and the remaining back over 2 years with no questions asked, they were fine about it.