Family Tax Credit

[Bob696]

Does anybody actualy understand this? If you do could you please explain it to HM Customs and Revenue because they dont.

I am down as haveing no job. Karen is down as working full time. Michael gets nothing for his disability living allowence and yet they still say we  owe them £1500 :shock:  :shock:  :shock:

Karen is very good with forms and we have kept all the past letters and statements (which includes estimates following final statements) we have just spent 2 hours following the paper trail and it makes no sense at all and when you ring up the 'helpline' they dont even understand their own forms.

This was obviously one of Tony B Liar's ideas as it dosnt work. What the hell was wrong with the inland revenue sorting it all out at source????

[sleeplessparadise]

How on earth can you owe them money? And in such a large amount.  :? That is ridiculous.

[Bob696]

Apparently we cant appeal their decision until we recieve a final statement. We had one of those once and a week later we got an estimate. When we tried to appeal we were told "but your last statement was an estimate so you cant appeal" :roll:  :roll:  :roll:

All they have to do is keep sending estimates and we cant appeal against it.

Time to see if our MP is worth anything (yeah right)

edit. Oh yeah and they cant do anything at the moment when you ring up as the cumpter system keeps crashing so it has been taken off line  :roll:

[bezzabsa]

yup same here.. every year they give us X amount.. then next year they say they have overpaid us.. and then proceed to take the money.. then when we re apply they cock it up again, so we are back to square 1..lot simpler before blair put his oar in.....im on 12k a year and t'other half is a 'housewife' but they reckon we owe then most years about 5k!! madness. when it swapped over they sent our neighbour 14 giros in 2 days ading up to about 4 k, she went straight up to see them and said that this cannot be right... their reply was 'IT IS CORRECT THE COMPUTER  SYSTEMCANNOT MAKE MISTAKES'.. next year she had to repay the 4k...makes you wonder!!!

[discograham]

single parent of three, just made redundant, mortgage and bills like everyone...simple...
but not for them...
makes me want to go and explain very clearly... with a baseball bat... :lol:

[way2deep]

if it's any concillation my mrs works for the dwp and we still get overpaid and they want it back at the end of the year .....you can tell them till your blue in the face that they are overpaying ya and it won't matter a toss ..the system is so screwed up .....it's a good job they only run the country and not a business  

[rollazuki]

I must be the only one who's unlikely to have to pay back. I dont earn a mint, the wife is part time, we get about 40 quid a month...Theres people I know earning twice as much(literally) who get way more family credit than me. I just dont understand it.
You fill in the massive booklet/application. You get told it needs to be in on time etc. They then louse it up..........Great!

Hang in there, like a friend in banking once told me. If you owe someone money and are struggling to afford the payback, just offer a minimal payment. a couple of quid a week. All they can do is take you to court(this costs em money) and the court will only suggest you pay back a minimal payment, so make the offer first.

Good luck

[NiceBlueWellies]

We are currently paying them back too!

All well and good telling them what you earn, but when it changes month on month they can't work it out!

Easiest thing is not to apply for it - like a friend of mine, but I reacon that I am paying enough in taxes, so I want some of it back.

[POTASH]

same here,misses dosent work, i get nothing, yet people i work with get money, i cant work it out :?:

[TULL]

we dont even try to work it out till theyve sent the 3rd version, all different, and saying we owe loads they take it off what we would get if we didnt owe them :?

[mudfrog]

I know the feeling to well last year i was hit with a bill for a smidge under 4 grand, i had been made redundant,missus not at work,told i couldn't claim and wasn't entitled to anything 3 kids,mortgage etc etc. Finally sorted that one out, told i didn't owe anymore, now this year they have resent last years bill...........hmmmmmmmmm :?

[Bob696]

This is all so depressing. Such a small sample and so many errors. I think I will send a link to this thread to my MP

[Rangie3.0LtrDan]

I might just say from experience that if you are in receipt of FTC or WFTC then the most they can take from you per week is 10% of your payment.  Also check as if it puts you below the poverty line they have to send you top up payments.

Its not the system thats screwed up so far, its the idiots they use to man the phones and input the data.  I have had a look at the computer system and it works well, try to remember a program is only as good as its user.

[Bob696]

try to remember a program is only as good as its user.

Or its programers or the people who thought up the damn stupid idea anyway. This is going the same way as the CSA. Jobs for the boys and the goverment tries to cover for them and we end up suffering for them.

God but I used to hate Maggie Thatcher but looking back on it and comparing her to Blair at least she got things to work and ran an honest goverment.

It will be interesting to see what history has to say about Tony. I think he will go down as one of the most destructive PMs since world war 2.

[dazzawhipple]

Well our dealings with the Tax Credits have been fun to say the least :(

The first year when it come in I was overpaid It took me six months to stop them, I was then told dont worry we will take next years awards, for the next year leave everthing as is ( Thinking I was paying it back)

I have had demand for £2300 after informing them that I was unemployed for 4 months this was reduced to 85 quid wrote a cheque very quickly.........then started to claim for the unpaid years found out that someone in there wisdom had removed my dependants so everytime we applied we were rejected .. so this statrs a long winded saga of applying re applying eventully I have been sent cheques for the missing years, I have sent letters to my local MP, PM, and the paymaster general.

So eventully it was sorted out...............................no I have not been awarded any payments this year also I have applied for compensation I still have a payment outsatnding (wrong bank account credited Not ours!!!)

This has been ongoing now for 10 months, I ring them on a weekly basis

So good luck to you     ......lots of patenice needed when dealing with these numpties just remeber the helpline is just that a helpline they cannot do a thing but advise, inform etc

Bob if you want further help from my experance just pm me,

Darren

[Jas278]

Well I must be lucky, I dont claim it and dont agree with it, why no just lower income tax in the first place instead of creating such a minefield.Thats why this country is in such a mess too many people getting money for nothing,you people that are claiming it GOOD luck to you its there tobe claimed ,Im just glad Im not having demands for money and not being able to sort it out,you all must be banging your heads up the wall.

[karlo]

Go see your local Citizen's Advice they should have people who can help or at least point you in the right direction!

[drutt]

according to the news today, the CAB have dealt with around 130,000 cases of them overpaying and then claiming the money back, this year ...

so far it looks like they're overpaying by around 2.2Bn a year, and then claiming it back :?  however, the limits on how much they can claim back and so on are being re-evaluated to restrict just how stuffed you are by their incompetance...

[Bob696]

I wonder how much of this overpaying of 2.2bn actualy exsists to be honest.
2 years ago we recieved £2.63 for the whole year. Last year we recieved nothing. Yet the amount we owe is still going up (£800 it went up last year).

The only thing that makes it so laughable is they are not demanding the money in readies, just refusing to give us anymore and taking what they should be paying us off the total we owe. Except that they seem to think they are paying us minus amounts  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:

[LOULA]

I had something simular few years back i had 800.00 paid into my bank no letter or anything to say what was, found out from WFTC..When i eventually got through to them advised was backdated from previous award as not paid me enough asked are you sure seems alot and apparently conversations are recorded....they stated correct and i went on a large spending spree.

The following year they said over paid me and claimed it all back so i appealed as they told me correct and to spend it over 12 months later i received the outcome of the appeal saying agreed there error and a cheque would be sent out - no cheque ever arrived

Rang them up advised that they had paid it back to me over past 12 months and they didnt owe me a penny. WORK THAT ONE OUT.
NO WONDER THE COUNTRY IS IN THE STATE THAT IS IS IN .....

[Evilgoat]

And on the BBC news front page :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5032170.stm

[Rangie3.0LtrDan]

They should go back to paying it through the income support system as there were hardly ever any overpayments, and if there were you could usually trace where it came from, i.e. claimant didnt give correct information, or it was inputted wrong by a particular person!

[V8MoneyPit]

And on the BBC news front page :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5032170.stm

Quote:
But the government says once new measures are "fully implemented", it expects to reduce overpayments in future years by around a third.
Unquote.

I simply cannot fathom why people are overpaid in the first place. And if they are able to reduce the overpayments by a third, they should be perfectly capable of reducing it to nil.

Fine, if people have made false claims, they should pay it back. But I find it hard to believe that all the people who have made comments on here have made false claims, either knowingly or otherwise. It can only be poor adminstration of the claims.

I had problems with the CSA a few years ago and all this smacks of the exact same incompetence. They were suggesting I should pay nearly 2/3rds of my income for the upkeep of one child  :shock:
I went to huge lengths to find out how it was calculated. This wasn't easy as they don't give you all the information on the statements. But I eventually worked out exactly what I should have been paying and told them what I was going to do. I set up a standing order, rather than the direct debit they wanted and started paying. After threats of court action from them and many letters that I found, quite frankly, insulting I managed to get them to withdraw their claims and accept that I was right and they were wrong.
Never had a problem since.

[rollazuki]

Its like bob696 says......we are a tiny sector of society, and have had all this bad news about wftc's. I do wonder what percentage country wide has been screwed over. Just another hidden statistic I guess.

[Thrasher]

sob sob sob ... why oh why is this form written in Klingonee???

They don't make it easy to fill in AT ALL. And the thing that gets my goat more is that these are the same people I send my s*dding self assesment in to - WHY CAN'T THEY JUST LOOK THERE?!?!?!

[sleeplessparadise]

According to the story on the bbc quoted earlier in the thread......Quote "The government has said people will not be forced to give back money as long as the overpayment is the government's fault. " end quote.

[Thrasher]

....so everyone has to pay then - as the government NEVER make mistakes....<sigh>

[Rangie3.0LtrDan]

And the other problem is there is no one to appeal to, as there is no form of ombudsmen, and if the government are saying that their mistakes wont have to be paid back its utter crap, we got overpaid for 2 years running and they claimed every penny back, and we were both on benefits with the same income the whole time!

[Bob696]

"The government has said people will not be forced to give back money as long as the overpayment is the government's fault. "

A pig just topped Mach 2 over the top of my house

[sleeplessparadise]

:(biggrin):