Childrens Tax Credit
Author
Discussion

F i F

Original Poster:

48,788 posts

281 months

Monday 10th November 2008
quotequote all
Extremely short version of story.

Have been paid too much. Tell them about it at earliest possible opportunity when discover mistake. They send new statement. Overpaid by £x where £100 < x < £125, so no problem for me to just bung a cheque in the post or maybe do an online payment from my bank, just tell me the account to send it and it'll be gone pronto.

Nope, they intend to stop it from my future tax credit payments, which are currently, and will remain at, precisely £0.00/month.

How does that work then?

Is this the taxpayers equivalent of the:-
"Mr Scrote you are guilty as charged, £250 fine and costs."
"Can I pay at 25p/week yer 'onour?"

cougargirl

460 posts

217 months

Monday 10th November 2008
quotequote all
Think yourself lucky, apparently I've been overpaid £1,000's.

pdV6

16,442 posts

291 months

Monday 10th November 2008
quotequote all
It's a weird system allright.

Everything's based on the previous year, so if your family income is changing a fair bit from year to year, if oh, I dunno, there's some weird reason such as frigging maternity leave you get into a seemingly never-ending loop of over/under payments.

Try and sort it out by telling them in advance what the year's figures are likely to be and they can't cope. They'd rather over-pay and then claw it back.

Barmy.

cougargirl

460 posts

217 months

Monday 10th November 2008
quotequote all
HMRC

Horrendously Moronic Right C...

CR0X

1,863 posts

229 months

Monday 10th November 2008
quotequote all
we applied about two months ago, we got the birth certificate back, but nothing else ...

by the time we get news on how much is right, the OH will be back at work ... so will need reassessing all over again ...

argh indeed.

GreatGranny

9,519 posts

256 months

Monday 10th November 2008
quotequote all
My wife gave up work in April this year. We only told the Child Tax Credit office a few months ago. They recalculated our payments and backdated it to April within 4 weeks as promised. All my wife had to do was call them which was a bit of a pain and then prove she wasn't working anymore (P45). Surprisingly easy.

cougargirl

460 posts

217 months

Monday 10th November 2008
quotequote all
GreatGranny said:
My wife gave up work in April this year. We only told the Child Tax Credit office a few months ago. They recalculated our payments and backdated it to April within 4 weeks as promised. All my wife had to do was call them which was a bit of a pain and then prove she wasn't working anymore (P45). Surprisingly easy.
It is to start off with, but then you'll be overpaid, get threatening letters, they turn up on your doorstep wanting the money back asap.

Easy isn't the word I'd use right now.

Eric Mc

125,680 posts

295 months

Monday 10th November 2008
quotequote all
It is INITIALLY based on last year's income levels but the applicant is legally obliged to notify HMRC as soon as they find out what the current income levels are going to be.

The problem is that the Revenue seem to always fail to adjust the figures even when they are told the corrected information. When they do finally get around to amending things, they have paid the wrong amount for months and months.

King Herald

23,501 posts

246 months

Monday 10th November 2008
quotequote all
F i F said:
Extremely short version of story.

Have been paid too much. Tell them about it at earliest possible opportunity when discover mistake. They send new statement. Overpaid by £x where £100 < x < £125, so no problem for me to just bung a cheque in the post or maybe do an online payment from my bank, just tell me the account to send it and it'll be gone pronto.

Nope, they intend to stop it from my future tax credit payments, which are currently, and will remain at, precisely £0.00/month.

How does that work then?

Is this the taxpayers equivalent of the:-
"Mr Scrote you are guilty as charged, £250 fine and costs."
"Can I pay at 25p/week yer 'onour?"
We had pretty much the same story, they'd paid us a grand or two too much, along with 95% of people who use the system, so they just stopped our base £10 a week payment for a year or two.

I was so racked off with their total lack of competence that I ordered them NEVER to send me another penny again, but they did, once they had clawed back the money they overpaid through their gross stupidity.

Don't expect to rationalise with them, as they are beyond the limits of incompetence, past the slug brain stage, no more use to anybody than a smear of dog crap on your shoe.

Simpo Two

92,812 posts

295 months

Monday 10th November 2008
quotequote all
Pity Brown didn't just cut income tax or NI - it would been 1,000,000 times easier to do and even people without children could benefitted.

furtive

4,503 posts

309 months

Monday 10th November 2008
quotequote all
Last year they underpaid me by £9something and wrote to me saying that they can't pay out amounts less than £10 for some spurious reason.

This year they overpaid me by £9something and requested that I immediately paid it back!

King Herald

23,501 posts

246 months

Monday 10th November 2008
quotequote all
Eric Mc said:
....The problem is that the Revenue seem to always fail to adjust the figures even when they are told the corrected information. When they do finally get around to amending things, they have paid the wrong amount for months and months.
That was the problem we had: they continually failed to act on information we gave them.

At one stage they even told us it was OUR responsibility to check that THEY were doing their job right, by using the correct figures.

They turned it all round, no matter how much they fked it up, making out it was all OUR fault.

Utter cocktards, of the lowest possible calibre!!!!!