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Angelb
Rank; Hector Tax Inspector
United Kingdom
2 Posts |
 Posted - 04/03/2009 : 18:23:06
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Tax Credits overpaid me by £4200! They kept 'forgetting' to put my self employed income on or put that on and forgot to put my employed income on etc etc. I contacted them everytime and had various excuses, system down, ring back so on and so on. Then they disputed my claims. Luckily I always write everything down, name, date and time and then re write it out after so that it would make sense and still be fresh in my memory. You can also request a cd of all your telephone calls you have made to them. They will send it to you and you can confirm what you have said. although in my case they only recorded 9 out of the 11 conversations but they made the mistake of writing this down! So 2 of the conversations lasting several minutes were not 'burned' on the cd. I transcribed this cd painstakingly for 4 hours 'ad verbatim' ! My case has been going on since 2005. I had to tell them to stop paying me the £10.50 per week so as not to increase the debt too. My daughter is now in her final year at college and I have had nothing as my tax credit has been used to reduce the debt. However, there will still be at least £2600 balance. I also wrote to my MP. He has been excellent and his secretary a councillor said that the CD made 'interesting' listening. The tax credit cretins then sent me a hardship claim form in Oct 08 which I completed and then asked me to ring them to discuss payments. I've been advised to re-mortgage my house! Do they not listen to the news????? They have just replied via the Adjudicator's office to say that yes they were at fault by miscalculating and failing to put the correct information but that I was also at fault at not notifiying them HELLO, HELLO you tax credit morons, I have the CD, the paper work and a full lever arch file dossier to back me up. Oh and they offered to 'pay' me £150 for the upset caused and telephone calls made! What do you make of that!??
AngelB
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PJD
Da Purple one
United Kingdom
269 Posts |
Posted - 04/03/2009 : 22:45:25
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hiya AngelB
sorry to hear about your case. glad to hear you sound like you have your loins throughly girded for this fight.
two things i notice about what you mention...
1) HMRC must NOT encourage people to take out loans or borrow money in any form to repay an overpayment. i think you need get a copy of that call and add this to your complaint as this is a scandal in its self.
2)this sounds a perfect example case with which to challenge treasury minister Stephen Timms to put his money whee his mouth is.
in parliament recently he said.....
Steven Timms (Financial Secretary, HM Treasury; East Ham, Labour) -
If the hon. Lady's constituents have informed the tax credit office of errors on the award notice and if those errors have led to an overpayment, that overpayment is not recoverable. If she would like to draw my attention to any examples of that kind, that would be the outcome.
we recently decided we accepted his challenge and we intend to 'draw his attention' to the fact these cases go on all the time. are you up for becoming one of the case we present to him?
cheers
Paula |
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Angelb
Rank; Hector Tax Inspector
United Kingdom
2 Posts |
Posted - 08/03/2009 : 17:41:53
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Thank you Paula
You have given me more strength to fight my case - thank you. With ref to the call 'advising' me to remortgage the house as 'sometimes the interest is a better rate than the inland revenue'...., I was indeed taken aback by her advice and in any case during the current 'credit crunch' I don't think the building society would want to allow a remortgage to repay tax credits. I will definitely ask for a copy of the call. I would definitely be up for a 'case study' just let me know what you would require me to do.
Regards
Angela
AngelB |
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Ali M-W
Da Tech(y ones)
3296 Posts |
Posted - 17/03/2009 : 08:27:40
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Hi Angelb - Our Blog, the Diary of the Damned, has tended to take a back seat to the Labourspace campaign we are waging, but if you were happy to do a quick write-up for us, I think it would be interesting for visitors to the Blog - including some politicians, decision-makers and the media - to hear of the depths to which the Revenue sink in their desperation to collect tax credits: even to the point of encouraging you to remortgage your home.
This, whichever way you look at it, is bad practice. A so-called anti-poverty device can lose you your home!
If you wanted to blog, you can send it here: Blog@TaxCC.org You can do so without printing your full name - just be "Angelb" if you like.
Going back to your case, you could either send a summary of your case to Paula at paula@taxcc.org , and she will send it to Stephen Timms with an accompanying letter, or you can contact him yourself if you prefer:
"1. Write to me at Stephen Timms MP, House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA
2. Telephone me on 020 7219 4000
3. Send me a fax on 020 7219 2949
4. Email me on stephen@stephentimms.org.uk "
If you quote the following, tell him what you have told us about advising HMRC of "errors that have led to an overpayment", and copy your Timms letter to your own MP to chase. Say that you are taking up his offer to the House to "draw [his] attention to any examples of that kind" and are eagerly now awaiting the promised "outcome" that the "overpayment is not recoverable". You can tell him about the remortgage suggestion too, and mention that the Tax Credit Casualties are also shocked by it and are not prepared to see this condoned.
Don't let him tell you that he can only act for his own constituents, because he is the Financial Secretary to the Treasury and oversees tax credits - which affects not just his own constituents but the whole nation. He can intervene.
So it's up to you - contact Paula or have a go yourself. Others too, who have advised errors only to see HMRC build up a huge 'debt' for them. We can flag abuses up the the nedia, and we can plead with our politicians for reform - even fundraise for the legal action we have been promised - but there is really no greater spur to action than People Power - thousands if not millions of people telling HMRC and this apology of a government that enough is enough.
So good luck! Ali.
Please vote to bring our 'Justice is an Amnesty' campaign to the government’s attention, and ask all your friends to do the same!
http://www.labourspace.com/view_campaign?CampaignId=125
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Alan the Geordie
Da Purple one
2787 Posts |
Posted - 17/03/2009 : 15:42:36
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Don't pee about - take it to the media.
"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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Ali M-W
Da Tech(y ones)
3296 Posts |
Posted - 17/03/2009 : 19:57:54
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Good suggestion! If you contact me asap on ali@taxcc.org , we have had a major TV company looking for a victim to talk to on TV. If you are up for it (or anyone who is), please shout.
Please vote to bring our 'Justice is an Amnesty' campaign to the government’s attention, and ask all your friends to do the same!
http://www.labourspace.com/view_campaign?CampaignId=125
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Ali M-W
Da Tech(y ones)
3296 Posts |
Posted - 23/03/2009 : 09:19:49
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This any good, Angel?
Stephen Timms MP
Financial Secretary to the Treasury
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA
Dear Mr Timms,
Recently in the House of Commons you stated, “If there is an overpayment as a result of an official error, but the customer has met his or her responsibilities as I described, by checking the accuracy of the information on the award notice, the overpayment will be written off” (see http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.com/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/cm090203/halltext/90203h0011.htm).
I am writing to ask you to intervene with HM Revenue and Customs to ensure that my own overpayment is written off in full, since it only arose because HMRC did not correct its own errors which I had previously pointed out. I have met my responsibilities, but HMRC has unfortunately not met its own. I refuse to be held accountable for someone else’s incompetence.
(Give details of your own case – where you had advised HMRC of errors you discovered from an award notice but HMRC had not acted promptly on this advice.)
In the same Tax Credit debate you offered the following invitation to Jo Swinson: “If the hon. Lady’s constituents have informed the tax credit office of errors on the award notice and if those errors have led to an overpayment, that overpayment is not recoverable. If she would like to draw my attention to any examples of that kind, that would be the outcome.” This statement implies that if a claimant has pointed out errors which have not been corrected which lead to an overpayment, that overpayment cannot be recovered, and if attempts have been made to recover moneys in such a situation, you wish to know so that you can ensure that the alleged overpayment is promptly written off. Please accept this letter as my own invitation to you to do just that on my own behalf. Since I am not your constituent, and in case your intention was solely to deal with referring MPs, as you can see, I have copied this letter to my own MP so that (s)he can formally request your intervention on my behalf if this should be what you require in order to act. I hope that the courtesy offered to Jo Swinson is similarly available to other MPs and their unfortunate Tax Credit Casualty constituents?
I look forward to hearing from you shortly that this sum is not to be recovered. Since you have promised elsewhere that “claimants can now expect disputed overpayments to be dealt with within four weeks”, I trust that you can confirm to me within a calendar month that I am finally debt-free?
Yours sincerely,
Cc to: your own MP.
and to Paula Dean, Tax Credit Casualties.
Best of luck!
Please vote to bring our 'Justice is an Amnesty' campaign to the government’s attention, and ask all your friends to do the same!
http://www.labourspace.com/view_campaign?CampaignId=125
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TCO admits fault but still want repaying
