Our Child Tax Credit Nightmare
January 14th, 2009 5 Comments » | POSTED BY ROB
Warning: what follows may be of little interest unless you’re involved in the workings of the excellent U.K. tax credit system.
Both my partner and myself received fantastic letters from Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs this morning, to notify us that they were stopping paying us the zero tax credits that they’ve been paying us for the last couple of years. Yes, that’s right, two letters to let us know we weren’t going to receive anything when we already hadn’t been receiving anything for the last few years.
This is just one in a series of mess ups we’ve seen from the HMRC in our saga, which has been going on for the best part of 3 years, since our daughter (our second child) was born.
When she arrived, we notified the HMRC of the situation, and eventually they came back saying that we owed them a couple of hundred quid for some reason, which we disputed. And this dispute went on and on, largely because communicating with them was such a pain – call centers couldn’t answer straight questions, you’d ask for a call back from a supervisor and never get the call. This went on for weeks, eventually we resorted to writing letters, but this still failed to resolve the problem.
At this point, we decided (in hindsight, a bad decision), to give up on it, as we thought back then that it wasn’t worth the hassle for a few extra quid.
A couple of weeks ago, we started to wonder whether we were missing out by not claiming any Child Tax Credits that we could still be entitled to – we both work and pay our taxes, and whilst a couple of years ago we thought we could do without it, given the hassle we were getting claiming it, right now every penny counts to us, so why shouldn’t we claim what we are entitled to?
So once again we approached the HMRC to see if the situation had changed and if we could get it sorted out. We submitted some more information, and awaited a reply. I thought they may come back and say we owed them money, which, although we still dispute that we owe them anything, I was now willing to pay, if I knew it would mean we’d make it back over the months we were receiving the tax credits.
Which brings us to today’s letters, telling us that we no longer qualify for the credits that they weren’t paying to us anyway.
I still feel in the dark about the whole situation – are we simply not entitled to anything? I’d admit that I need to do some more research to find this out, as it has been my partner who has really been looking after this problem, but I suspect that even if we are entitled to them, it will still be a pain to sort out.
It’s also frustrating not knowing where to turn to next, if we are indeed still entitled to the tax credits. We’ve tried phoning , writing etc., so what’s the next step? This is really what stopped us pursuing the claim in the past, but times have changed and now we’re more eager to get all we’re entitled to. I’m not too concerned if we can’t reclaim anything we may have been entitled to in the last 3 years, as it was our decision to give up chasing it, but going forward, it would be good to get the money we should have, given our contributions to the tax man.
In some ways I think we were stupid to drop the claim when we did, but 3 years down the line, we are entitled to change our minds, aren’t we? And with the government seemingly promising tax payer’s money to bail out people left right and center, I’m eager to get more for my family.
I’d be interested to hear if anyone else has had similar experiences with the tax credit system, and what the outcome was? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
photo credit: Larsz
5 Comments on “Our Child Tax Credit Nightmare”
I once dealt with a mortgage case where the wife was receiving lots of tax credits and benefits. The useful tax people had made a real mess of the payments, and accidentally been paying them about £10,000 a year in benefits which they should not have been entitled to.
This came to light as the mortgage application based it’s income calculation on the benefits as well as the earned income. It was during the mortgage processing by the lender that someone (more clued up than me about benefits) noticed that the earned income was £17,000, which is higher than the threshold for Working Famillies Tax Credits, and thus the application didn’t proceed.
Have you checked the calculator at https://www.taxcredits.inlandrevenue.gov.uk/Qualify/DIQHousehold.aspx ?
The qualification largely depends on your joint income level and the number of children you have. If your combined income is over 30k then you’re probably not entitled to anything.
I’ve had my own horror stories with both child tax credit and working tax credit claims. And yes, I’ve received letters saying “Your annual award has changed from £0.00 last year to £0.00 this year.” What a waste of money and paper!
I have had so much trouble from these people after having my 2nd child, i thought i got it sorted to get a letter this morning saying i own them 2517 im still trying to sort it out and seeing a solicitor cuz child tax has bad communication.
Kirsty, July 21st, 2009
My son is now 1yrs old and we have just sent off the form for the end of the tax year.
Since then we have found out that you can claim Child and working tax credit.
Working tax credit applies to those who work at least 16hrs a week and if part of a couple, earn no more than £50k between you.
I also heard about all these people owing money……because when you first fill in the form, they dont ask your income?
So you receive money for a whole year without a thought until you have to send off the form at the end of tax year.
I assume if your still employed when you send yours, they go on the previous years tax.
I left my job, so im hoping i dont owe anything!
Good luck ladies :0)
jenni, August 25th, 2009
Look up http://www.taxcc.org.uk It is a comprehensive site dedicated to tax credit cock ups and overpayments arising from ‘non- fraudulent’ errors. It’s run by volunteers and fellow ‘tax credit casualties’. Follow the links and find out how to dispute, how to retrieve your data that hmrc have on file (and by law are obliged to give you if you ask) and how to get your mp involved. There are template letters for all sorts of situations and forums so you can ask particular questions (or just vent- as we all need to do at some point)
