HMRC... tax bill

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Soldato
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Was 150 yds from OCUK - now 0.5 mile; they moved
Well HMRC have sent me a letter asking for £208.52 back from an overpayment on child tax credits back in 2010.
They have also sent my wife the same letter.

Firstly how and why would I owe this? Secondly is this really enforceable?
 
Tax credits are an utter clusterfudge and very hard to get right from either the claimant or the payer's side. You almost certainly do owe it, but it takes forever to figure out what you're entitled to. It's stupid because your claim in 2010 will have been based on your income in 2009 and your anticipated income in 2010, and then trued up in 2011 for what you actually earned and were actually paid in tax credits. It's a nightmare.

Have they actually sent you a calculation of how it's arisen?

The fact that it's taken this long for them to figure it out shows how badly run the system and department is.

As for whether it's enforceable... The usual time limit for things like this is 6 years, so I would have thought they were outside this time limit.
 
It's odd that they have sent it to the pair of you. I had it a few months back but they made it clear that they approach the higher earner in the partership (but that might have been becuase the rules changed at back end of 2012).

- Yes it's enforceable and they will persue you
- You might also get interest added plus a penalty for failing to inform them through self assessment
- You'll probably have to do self assessment in January to confirm that they're not overpaying
- You'll probably have to go through a bunch of questions to prove/persuade them that you didn't do this intentionally

All the more galling for me was they hit me for 4.5k payment for child benefits from 2013-2016. That's a payment against child benefits me and the ex wife had paid into our joint account, yet I got stiffed for it despite being divorced for almost two years now. I feel the fine and repayment should have been taken from me and the ex - I'd no hope of getting her to contribute and had to suck it up.
 
Randomly 2012 was the last year we got any payment cos in 2013 we no longer qualified.

I almost think it should be on the government to get this right. We gave all the correct info each year. They should not mess it up!

If employer messed up my salary 6 years ago I wouldn't expect them to chase me now for the money back. This is the same.

Oh well I will call them. I'm going to ask for the full calculations etc first though
 
I think I'd probably just pay it as I imagine its going to be a massive pain in the ass trying to get it sorted, and possibly not worth the effort even if you legally don't have to pay it. I'm pretty lazy though.
 
a few years back they sent us a series of letters, me and the missus never knew we could claim tax credits... we owe you £3000, we owe you £6000 we owe you £7000... they kept asking for bank details we kept giving them the information it went on for 3 years repeated letters saying they have (in total I think 18k to give us) eventually after untold phone calls and letters and us giving them the bank details they said too much time has passed and we can FO and have nothing!

they could have just not said anything and we would have never known... it must have taken man weeks of their time sending letters and taking calls on this matter alone...
 
We had a series of letters years ago from tax credits 'you owe us £2700' then 'you owe us £1600' then 'we owe you £2600' etc etc. Went on for a few weeks back and forth until suddenly they decided we didn't owe them and they didn't owe us.
Government incompetence knows no bounds.
 
Moses said:
It hasn’t necessarily taken them this long to work out. Is the limit six years for tax credits? If so they’ll have a project on and they’ll be dealing with stuff where the clock is soon to run out.
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It may even be as low as 4 years if it's in line with usual enquiry limits. 4 years for a normal enquiry, 6 years for a careless error, 20 years for a deliberate error.

If they're outside the time limits then they can demand the money but they can't actually take any action to recover it. All they could do is offset it against any hypothetical future claims.
 
How strange, they must be doing the rounds. One of the first letters i received at my new address - in New Zealand, was a letter from HMRC, saying i owed them £437 for tax credits from 2012, and if i needed assistance, to ring them in UK! I emailed them to tell them i wouldn't be ringing them from New Zealand and asked for more details about this about 12 days ago, they promised a reply within 10 days, not heard anything. Stupid UK government :/
 
Just add a few quid to Skype. I've had to ring a few people for various money related reasons and it's a godsend. You can also ring 0800 free like in the UK, everything else is charged at local/national rates.
 
At least its only £208. I've had a £800 N.I. contributions bill before now. Ouch. Well technically I don't have to pay it but if I dont' it won't count towards the pension... yeah.

Stilll I did a £2000+ tax rebate cheque in the post recently. Happy days. :D
 
Hmrc are in a mess. For five years now they keep telling us at work we have overpaid by £585k and that we can have it back if we want. We haven’t btw. Been tempted to take it but at some point they would notice and only want it back so we wouldn’t gain much interest.
 
One time (not over child benefits but related) they chased me up for £18 - when I tried to tell em they'd actually overpaid me £400 they weren't interested. Nearly ended up in court because I was trying to do the right thing.
 
I'm not sure the normal 'limit' for historical tax recovery apply here (6 years) as this is an overpayment of a credit so there probably isn't a limit. I would check with a benefit consultant or your local CAB before refusing to pay.
Andi.
 
andicole0 said:
I'm not sure the normal 'limit' for historical tax recovery apply here (6 years) as this is an overpayment of a credit so there probably isn't a limit. I would check with a benefit consultant or your local CAB before refusing to pay.
Andi.
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So far as I can tell from reading their website and other guidance websites they have no powers to pursue it. They can't take him to court as there is no statutory provision for it. All they can do is deduct it from any future payments, but if he's not claiming in the future, that will never happen.
 
I recall someone saying they don't make much effort to chase anything <£500. Depending on how scary the letter is, perhaps wait and see if they send you another?

For PAYE, they seem to think I owe several hundred for the year before last. Very frustrating to deal with for something that's fairly obvious to spot. My previous employer has been in contact to confirm my earnings (HMRC response - "Unfortunately, I cannot give a time scale as to when this will be done.") and I've spoken to them several times since March and received 2 letters saying they'd investigate but still no progress. Hate to think how long it would take to resolve something that was actually complicated.
 
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