Extra tax credits payments - can I keep the money??

[Doodle2907]

Hi, tax credits are confusing me and wondering if anyone has been in the same position??

We only get Child Tax Credits. For the last 2 years our total income has been about £25k and we have 1 child, so have been getting between £10-15 a week (the amount fluctuated as I updated our income - husband's pay rise, me changing jobs etc).

We just had a new baby at the end of May. I hadn't received our renewal pack yet, but I went online and added the baby to the claim as well as updating this year's income to about £22k due to me being on mat leave. The website updated and said our next payment would be £95 which I assumed was a back payment for the couple of weeks our baby was born but we were still getting the original amount.

Before getting that payment our renewal pack came and I did it online. It then updated saying we would get a payment of £67.

So yesterday both those payments went into our account separately. However this morning another 2 payments came in, one for £67 and one for £70. So over the course of 2 days we had 4 payments (all of them say child tax credits, so they're not working tax credits or anything) totalling almost £300 - this has to be a mistake right?

Has anyone else had this?? I've put the money aside so we don't spend it, but would very much like to!!

I've had the same thing when I changed jobs and updated my details. I had quite a few payments over a few days as they updated each part of the record.

I rang them, they checked all the details over the phone and said that yes, so long as I wasn't lying about anything then the payments were right. It's so scary getting extra payments as I was completely convinced they were going to claim them back.

Be very careful here - I had the same happen a few years back and I didn't trust them so I put the extra payments away safely in a different account. Sure enough they clocked on to their own mistake later (despite my telling them at the time I thought something was wrong) and asked for £300 back.

Yes Tax credits will pay you random amounts whenever you do a change of circumstances- they will probably say you have been overpaid at the end of the tax year too, can't remember a year they haven't apparently overpaid me despite having all my correct details!

I normally get an extra payment when I change my details too. Never had to pay it back.

Something that is not regularly mentioned is calculating your income when you're on maternity- the first £100 a week isn't taken into your calculation. See this to check if it changes your calculation- you could be entitled to a fair whack more.