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Nettie
Rank; Hector Tax Inspector
United Kingdom
1 Posts |
 Posted - 05/11/2009 : 08:56:56
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LAST TIME: My husband and I have claimed WFTC since we moved to Wales in 2001, when our daughter was 1. In the first couple of years we had a huge amount of hassle/incompetence from them, culminating in them saying we'd been overpaid and had to pay back (I forget the sum involved). To cut a long story short, I wrote a letter which I cc'd to the then PM Tony Blair, Gordon Browm, leader of the opposition, all the financial and daily papers, my MP, my assembly member, everyone I could think of. The Daily Telgraph picked up the story and did a feature on us in their financial pages, resulting in the revenue withdrawing their demand for money, reinstating our claim, apologising to us and sending us £150 compensation. END OF STORY ONE
THIS TIME: We've continued to claim without incident until 3 years or so ago. I returned to work part time. We told the revenue of our change in circumstances - we continued to get WFTC, which we assumed was because I work only 15 hours a week, earning a total of less than £4k pa - our combined salary being only £20k. When we inherited a large sum of money, we also informed them of this. Although we didn't keep the money, but paid off a chunk of the mortgage with it, they viewed this as additional income, said we'd been overpaid as a result and stopped all payments immediately, in order to clear the overpayment. Fair enough. We had no money from them for a year, so assumed we no longer had a claim, therefore failed to fill in the renewal forms when they came. As a result, we got an overpayment bill for £1400. We rang them up, explained our situation and they said we should ignore the bill, reinstate the claim and one would cancel out the other. So, we reinstated the claim, and continued to get demands for £1400 and £89.00 which we ignored as instructed. Last week another demand came, and I begged my husband to 'phone and check that everything was still ok. To his surprise they informed him that they reckon we have been overpaid by £4211 and demanded immediate payment, the alternative being the bailiffs. When he explained we couldn't pay, they said we had to pay £342 per month and said we could not appeal until we instigated a payment plan. He begged his employer to stump up the money for us, and obviously, we shall go into battle with them once more. It has affected me very badly, I have been very stressed, considered suicide, and have been in bed for a week with a mystery virus. This was a direct result, I think, of a 'phone call I had last Saturday norning from a very officious and aggressive customs and revenue bod who said we owed £4112 (a different amount to that quoted the week before.) Incidentally, we have never had a written demand for this sum of money. We have now asked for a written breakdown of what they reckon we have been overpaid, and why, but have received nothing yet. Anyway, this bloke refused to give me his full name (I did get it out of him eventually) was very unpleasant, saying we were evading our debt and made me cry. I lost it (although I didn't swear, shout or lose my temper) and told him that the stress they had caused was making me suicidal, whereupon he told me to 'Stop it' because he was finding my remarks 'offensive'!
Since all this happened, our new claim has been processed, and they are now paying us £89 pm CTB, whilst still demanding £4211! None of what they does makes sense, their methods are tantamount to bullying, and they are bullying those least able to defend themselves. If you're skint enough to need to claim the thing in the first place, what makes them think you're ever going to be in a position to pay it back?
I feel so strongly about this that I'm prepared to go on television about it / strap myself to a large public building with a banner / go to prison if that's what it takes. SOMEBODY PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE HELP _ I'M AT THE END OF MY TETHER.
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samthe
Rank; Private Primate
187 Posts |
Posted - 05/11/2009 : 20:36:23
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This sounds dreadful, but please do try to calm down (easier said than done, I know) - it is not the end of the world! You will have to fight them and I'm afraid you are likely to be in for a long haul. My comments on what you say:
1. When you told them of your change of circs. 3 yrs ago they should have sent you a new award notice with a set of notes asking you to check it & notify them of any errors. If they did do this & the award did not correctly state your changed circs. & you did not tell them, then they will argue that you are liable to repay any overpayment that arose as a result.
2. My understanding is that the amount of capital (& your inheritance would be capital) you have does not affect your tax credit amount in any way. All that happens is that, if you keep the capital and earn interest/dividends from it then any such income above £300 pa counts as income and reduces your entitlement. If they did anything other than treat the interest you received as income I think they were wrong - & if you no longer had the capital then you were not earning interest from it so your income did not increase as a result. If they did alter your entitlement as a result of this you should have had an award notice showing it. This may well need to be disputed.
3. Unfortunately, your failure to fill in the renewal form was probably a mistake. It is used to finalise the claim for the previous tax year (or part of a year if the claim ended part way through the year) & failure to send it in, even if you are no longer entitled to any TCs, can cause problems. However, this would not necessarily mean it would cause an overpayment.
4. The Helpline should not have instructed you to ignore the demands for money. They are most unlikely to know the full reasons for any alleged overpayment and eliminating it is not just a matter of re-claiming.
5. You certainly cannot be held accountable for any overpayment before having been notified of it in writing.
6. "and demanded immediate payment, the alternative being the bailiffs". NO - totally incorrect. Bailiffs can only become involved if they go to Court, get a Court judgement against you and you fail to comply with the terms of that judgement. Also, you have up to 3 years to pay any recoverable overpayment and this should be explained to you. If they made you pay £342 p mth it would recover it all in 12 months. This is not correct.
7. "we could not appeal until we instigated a payment plan". Again, totally wrong. The word "appeal" is used loosely and inaccurately. You cannot appeal at all against a decision to recover an overpayment, but you can dispute it through TCO complaints procedure and you do not have to have a payment plan in force to do this. The "appeal" process is a quasi-judicial one and it may be that some of their decisions (eg if they acted wrongly in relation to the capital you received) could be appealed, but there is a short timescale for doing this & you are probably outside it. However, this does not mean that nothing can be done to put right the effects of any error they made - it can still be done as part of the disputes process.
8. The way they work, if you have an overpayment from a claim which has ended they cannot recover it from a new claim which is in payment. This explains why they are now paying you at the same time as chasing you for money.
Action I suggest you take now:
a) Go to www.taxcc.org and look through the Disputes section. Do a SARN letter (to get your paperwork & CD), as explained there.
b) You don't say whether you requested the written breakdown by writing to them, or whether it was asked for in a phone call. You need to write to them formally raising a dispute and setting out in your letter all the items you are aware of where you think they are in the wrong. Also say that you have requested a copy of all your paperwork & CD of calls & will provide more detail when you have them. Emphasise that you have never had a written demand for the £4112 and repeat your request for a detailed breakdown of all the alleged overpayments and an explanation of how they arose.
c) Write a separate letter to the Debt Management unit (their letters to you will not have come from the TCO Preston address - many are from Cumbernauld & some from other towns). Enclose a copy of your disputes letter and if you have started paying them (I'm not sure from what you say whether you have done so) inform them you will not make any further payments until the dispute is settled. This is in accordance with their procedure.
d) Send all letters recorded delivery & keep a copy. If you have any more phone contact get the name of the person you speak to & keep a detailed note of what was said & of the date and time of the call.
e) Go & see your MP about all this. What you describe about the call which reduced you to tears is horrifying and utterly unacceptable. Hopefully he/she will agree to takes things up for you but you have to be realistic - you cannot expect the MP to do all the detailed work which is needed.
I do hope you succeed. It will take a long time but don't give up. |
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Ali M-W
Da Tech(y ones)
3296 Posts |
Posted - 06/11/2009 : 06:38:32
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Hi Nettie,
My advice to you would be - contact Paula Dean. I have pasted her details here from the website:
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Paula Dean
07591 392459
Paula@TaxCC.org
Fax 0845 2800862 National Coordinator Advice and support Casework
The phone number shown is a 'message line' - please leave a message and a contact number so that Paula can ring you back. It may take Paula a few days to respond to messages and e-mails, but you will get a response - so please leave only one message or e-mail. Thanks!
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Thanks to a generous donor, we now have a modest Campaign Fund looking more like a fighting fund than small change for the newspaper bill. (Any generous philanthropists please follow this link! http://www.taxcc.org/donations.htm) We also, in cases satisfying certain criteria, now have the option of a JUDICIAL REVIEW, thanks to our excellent pro bono lawyers and some partnership working between LITRG and other welfare organisations and charities in this field. And we have been lobbying Stephen Timms, Treasury Minister, to honour his promise and look at cases himself where there has been injustice or special circumstances.
We are not, despite the impact we have made on the horrendous overpayment fiasco over several years with much painstaking work as volunteers in our "free" time, a large organisation by any means, so we do welcome self-helpers following the guidance on our website and advice such as that given by members and allies such as Samthe (thanks for that!), but when people are absolutely desperate, suicidal, in dire need or special circumstances apply, we will do our utmost to help so that they are not alone.
So my advice would be to call Paula. Please don't expect an immediate reply, but she will help you and does prioritise when there are threats made by HMRC or the circumstances demand it.
Best of luck, friend.
Morpheus: I'm trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it. |
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missfroy2
Rank; Captain Gordon
236 Posts |
Posted - 06/11/2009 : 11:24:48
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Can i just add, that whilst the advice Samthe has been given is sound, if they did take capital in to account when they shouldn't have that will not fall under the dispute procedures which the links above will take you to.
There are strict rules on getting an award entitlement changed at a later date once it has already been finalised. Therefore you need to get some specialist help.
Try LITRG or TaxAid for advice on checking whether the award was wrong by taking into account the capital amount (rather than interest) and whether you are still within the timescales for doing something about it.
MF2 |
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Overpayment Demand - 2nd time in 9 years
