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pigletlove
Rank; Hector Tax Inspector
7 Posts |
 Posted - 27/02/2009 : 13:00:49
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hi all,
Well i have recieved my srn data but no cd with phone calls on, i recieved this last week and yesterday get a letter saying the overpayment arose due to an increase in my income, when i phoned in january they told me i had earnt £18000 and something and had informed them when my income went over £11452.80 but didnt tell them when it went over £17000, i actually earnt £15333 that year which it does say on the letter, but in the sar data they have worked out my tax credits on a household income of £12831 which means i must of informed them that my income had gone over the £11452.80, the letter states i didn't inform them, i cannot remember if i did or not as that year was all a blur now as with all this my mum was diagnosed with terminal cancer and the rest of that year was spent looking after her, I did originally set up a dd to repay this back, but for some reason they never set it up and didn't bother to inform me there was a problem with it, if they had i would of been able to pay it back, Why did they leave it 5 years when i have 4 kids and a low income??????????????? it's looking like i will have to repay this, but do they only take your essential bills eg gas elec, water rent in to account or do they take everything because if they dont we still have to pay these bills and having to repay them as well will leave us with no money for food, nappies etc will they take my partners wages in to account seeing as he had nothing to do with the claim in 2003 and recieved none of the award i didn't even know him then so he wont be contributing to the repayments??? is there anything i can do??? how long are they supposed to give you to go through your srn stuff? i dont know how long i have before they start legal proceedings or anything, would it be worth writing asking for answers why they have left it 5 years when i was willing to repay it back then and to pay it back now would cause me great hardship plus i have not long finished reapying back 1215 last year which left us very little money plus we are trying to save for a deposit to move house as our house is damp and making my children ill if we have to repay this we wont be able to afford to move house and my children will constantly become ill, i knwo they have no hearts up there but i just really dont know how to go about this???? please help
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TCC Webmaster
Da Purple one
Virgin Islands (United Kingdom)
129 Posts |
 Posted - 27/02/2009 : 14:22:13
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Hiya Pigletlove,
Others will be along soon to help you out. Please try not to worry too much.
Sometimes, I can answer questions - but at the end of the day, I'm just a simple webmaster  .... and would like to leave those more qualified to answer yours. But you are amongst friends here ....
Please will you allow me to copy your post, and put it on the Labour website (see below)? We have a campaign just started there, and I'd like to copy what you've written onto our blog so that the Labour party know how much harm this is doing to decent people.
Thanks
Make change happen!!
Support our 'Justice is an Amnesty' campaign on the Labour website 'LabourSpace'
Register and vote at http://www.labourspace.com/view_campaign?CampaignId=125
The original 'point & click' interface was a Smith & Wesson !! |
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Ali M-W
Da Tech(y ones)
3296 Posts |
Posted - 27/02/2009 : 14:51:40
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Hi Pigletlove. I can see you are really worrying about this, so I just wanted to encourage you to stick to your beliefs and not let them bully you into repaying money they gave you to spend and have decided to come after. If we stick together and fight, we will eventually win justice for ourselves and others, but not if we let them terrify and bully us into parting with money we need for our families and futures. We just become "claimant fraud and error" [sic] statistics proving to an opressive regime that we must have been in the wrong because we have accepted our punishment.
You say you have not been sent any CD with your calls on? This often takes longer than the paperwork, but it should be sent, and if it does not follow soon, you will need to complain. In fact, you can complain right now, if you feel up to it. I would write and ask them how I can possibly provide them the details and evidence they need to understand that I did nothing wrong and that the mistakes were all theirs if they are hold onto my calls? If you put 'cc' at the bottom of your letter, and then list "Paula Dean, Tax Credit Casualties" and your MP as receiving copies, this should alert HMRC to the fact that you will know your rights and are not a soft touch they can bully and harrass into submission. Then I would write a covering letter to my MP asking her or him to intervene on my behalf, but also to do her or his utmost to keep the outrage of tax credit overpayments and their cruel recovery on the national agenda. I would even suggest you book to visit her/him in their local surgery, and bring whayever details you have so far of their bullying and negligence. I would also, if or when you go, let your feelings show. MP's are usually from priveleged backgrounds and don't always realise the effects on poorer families of these recovery demands. (S)he made need a sudden education on what it is like to have to decide whether to buy food, heating or nappies. If you feel the tears coming, do let them. These people are suppose to represent us, and I am deeply ashamed of some of them I have heard about, for how little they do, whilst some will seem to go that extra mile for a frightened constituent in need.
When you go back to one source of overpayment, you mention your mother having terminal cancer, and under the old "reasonable belief" rule with HMRC, even if you missed wrong figures on an award notice which might have shown they had calculated your award incorrectly, you could be considered to have had enough on your mind at that stage not to have noticed or to have checked things too deeply. So even if it turns out that HMRC is claiming you should have spotted something amiss, you do have some comeback there. But you won't know what you did and didn't do, and what they did and didn't do until you have ALL your data. So do make sure you have this.
Please don't rely on the "hardship" plea to make matters any better. I have heard that HMRC have a strict view of recovering overpayments, seeing them not as a necessaaary benefit which you spent in good faith and shouldn't therefore have to repay if it leaves you far worse off than before, but as an unpaid tax. So it becomes a high priority debt. They will take into account that you need money for food - at a very basic level (Lidls and Aldi, Tesco's value and the like - certainly not anything more refined) and also heating and fuel costs (to the basic minimum), but after that, they won't really worry themselves about TV licences, loans, debt repayments, HP, catalogue, or anything they deem inessential. The fact that our lovely MPs are furnishing "second" homes at our expense whilst lodging occasionally at a relative's house just serves to rub in how the other half lives. So to be honest, I would only ever evoke the hardship plea after everything else has been tried and failed, and you are a long way off that.
Do have a look at www.taxcc.org and the Dispute process there, for I don't think you can be that far down it, and there will probably be way to go yet before you can even think about losing and repaying anything. After HMRC have faffed about pretending to reconsider your case, and you have gone back to them a few times exposing their various lies and nonsense, you get to go to the Adjudicator. Some find success there, but since she operates under the same rules as HMRC, you may need to go on further (I did, but won after that, as my whole case was administered by a bunch of people who, politely put, hadn't got a clue). You have the Ombudsman, and after that, we can help you look at a Judicial Review. Hope it comforts you to know that the only people who belong to TCC who have lost so far are those who have got tired of it all and offered a repayment! The rest are still going or have achieved a (usually quiet - HMRC don't like apologising) victory. With a general election due, all the parties do know by now that something has got to be done about these tax credit overpayments, and whilst we only have the Lib Dems's proposals in the bag, you can bet that the other parties will want to come up with something a bit fairer than we have now. So once Brown is gone or disgraced enough to be scrapped by his party, we will see some decent reforms.
You will need to stick with this. We've got some TV stuff coming up very soon, and our campaign is now on Labourspace and doing well! Plus UNISON has now got tax credit overpayment recovery on its agenda. So if Labour MPs aren't feeling a bit worried about this now, they very soon will be.
To cut a long story short, be hopeful, not resigned. Unless you have deliberately lied or cheated (I know you haven't), you morally shouldn't be made to suffer for this. Labour can ignore reports from Citizens Advice, Advice Northern Ireland, the Low Incomes Tax Reform Group, our own "Voices of the Victims", the Parliamentary Ombudsman (twice!), the Child Poverty Action Group, One Parent Families, the cross-party Treasury Select Committee and various others, but it cannot ignore the media and unions, and the public outcry which will come when the true scale of this outrage becomes known!
I will make one prediction. If Labour is to win, it will not do so without a non-fraudulent tax credit Amnesty. It created this beast, and this beast has maimed and killed. The beast now has to be destroyed or tamed. If Labour want victory, they cannot get this at the expense of truth and justice. Gordonstein's Monster will have to be recognised for the vile creation that it is. "Sorry" wouldn't hurt!
Good luck with your dispute. Stick with it, and you'll win.
Trinity: No one has ever done anything like this.
Neo: That's why it's going to work.
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pigletlove
Rank; Hector Tax Inspector
7 Posts |
Posted - 27/02/2009 : 20:53:09
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hi thanks so much for the reply and advice.. i just wanted to say yes please do put my post ont he labour site if it can be of any help please go ahead... im still looking ta my srn stuff so will prob be back for advice as much of it doesn't make sense well not to me anyways
cheers |
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TCC Webmaster
Da Purple one
Virgin Islands (United Kingdom)
129 Posts |
Posted - 27/02/2009 : 21:11:30
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Thanks very much - your post will be on the LabourSpace site tonight!
Regarding your SARN stuff that doesn't make much sense to you - we have interpreters!
There are fantastic members of this forum who know how to interpret all that stuff! So, all you have to do is post the information on here, ask for help - and they will give it! Sometimes it may take a few days, but they do answer. (Thank you to everyone!)
Also, we are here for peer support - if you're a bit down and fed up with it all, tell us .... and we'll let you know that you aren't alone.
Keep your chin up - and don't let HMRC beat you! That's what they want to do!!
Make change happen!!
Support our 'Justice is an Amnesty' campaign on the Labour website 'LabourSpace'
Register and vote at http://www.labourspace.com/view_campaign?CampaignId=125
The original 'point & click' interface was a Smith & Wesson !! |
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Alan the Geordie
Da Purple one
2787 Posts |
Posted - 27/02/2009 : 21:12:07
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>> im still looking ta my srn stuff so will prob be back for advice as much of it doesn't make sense well not to me anyways <<
It doesn't make sense to a lot of folk, but we do have people here who do understand it & they can help.
"The best way to take control over a people and control them utterly is to take a little of their freedom at a time, to erode rights by a thousand tiny and almost imperceptible
reductions. In this way the people will not see those rights and freedoms being removed until past the point at which these changes cannot be reversed."
Adolf Hitler |
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help dont know what to do now?
