Back in September 2005, the Inland Revenue sent me a letter saying that I would have to pay them back £3,000 back in child tax credit overpayment. I knew that I had always declared our income to the best of my ability every year and inbetween , when our income went up.
It was impossible for us to calculate our current earnings by trying to calculate what my husband earnt at the end of the previous tax year in April, as he is works on an hourly rate as a contractor and our earnings can fluctuate by £15,000 a year or more, depending on whom he is working for and for how long. However, I knew that I had kept Inland Revenue informed and I did tons of research on the subject and even read the Parliamentary Ombudsman's report, which highlighted really serious flaws in the system.
Will go into more detail on a later post.
The jist of it was:
Many people, like us can't predict what they will earn for the forthcoming year.
Tax credit notices are unintelligible. Have yo ever tried to understand one? They don't make mathematical or logical sense, so payees don't know if they are being paid correctly or not.
No-one knows how payments are worked out, so how are you supposed to know if you are receiving the correct amount of CTC or not.
Even if you appeal against the Tax Credit Offices decision, they just seem to send a letter saying you are wrong and that you have no right of appeal. However, you do have a right of appeal.
If the Tax credit office tells you that you are wrong, then go to your local director's office and appeal. If they tell you to go away, then go to the Adjudicator's Office. Your last place to appeal is the Parliamentary Ombudsman. Ask for the leaflet called Putting things right from the tax credit office.
It took having to ask for my telephone and written records to be sent to me under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (this updated the data protection act) for me to win my case on my own (I did loads of research). When I was sent my phone records, I could hear myself informing IR of our increase in income, even though they had always denied this and said that I had never informed them of our increase in income a year before they asked for the £3,000 back. The internal written records showed that although I'd given them the info., they never updated their records and kept paying me too much, due to their mistake.
It took me a year to fight them, but in the end I won.
If any one wants any info. if they are having problems I will try to help if I can.
The whole Child Tax Credit system has been a complete farce. They have overpaid something like 9 million families around £6 billion pounds.
If you have had a similar experience, don't just accept it - stand up for your legal right to argue!
Good luck!!!!!
There were huge mistakes made with the IR computer system and many people were paid twice through no fault of their own.