Terms & Conditions

[Anonymous]

I am currently doing an appeal submission and was wondering if anyone could help me some with regs to back the decision up.

We assessed the claim in 2004 and did not include tax credits. The claim was then assessed in Jan 05 and Apr 05 without tax credits being included. On all assessments the claimant provided letters from tax credits stating that they were not entitled to them and we contacted the tax credit helpline and was verbally told that they were not entitled to them.

After an intervention in August 05 the claimant provided his partners payslips, it was then an assessor noticed that she was being paid tax credits in with her wages. It turns out the inland revenue had sent a stop notice to the employer but the employer had carried on paying the tax credits!

We went back to September 2004 and included the income as a misc income. The claimant is now appealing that he should not pay the overpayment back.

Any help would be apprecieted!

Hannah

[Anonymous]

Cold, hard facts: this overpayment was not caused by an official error from what you say (neither yours nor the Revenue’s). So it’s recoverable, end of.

Whether you choose to recover it is out of scope for the appeal.

[Anonymous]

Im not sure what you mean exactly! (Im having a bad day!)

The decision was made on 28/11/05 and we recieved the first dispute on 28/11/05.

They then disputed the revsion on 11/01/06 and it was looked at again on 24/04/06 and then we rec’d appeal form on 08/05/06???

Hannah

[aosulliv]

So the appeal was recvd within one month of the reconsideration being notified.

As the overpayment is not L.A error it is wholly recoverable. It is still your choice to recover or not

[Kevin D]

This was intended to be on last night, but it got blown into cyberspace.. 🙂

To flesh out the posts by Peter B & aosulliv, this may help (er, or entirely confuse)…

For the issue relating to the “Tax Credits” payments (see below for how the income should be treated), the following is true (based on the info posted):

1) Inland Rev notified both the clmt AND the employer that Tax Creds had ceased. Therefore, there is no error by the Inland Rev.

2) The LA acted on the info and supporting evidence provided by the clmt AND even checked it with Inland Revenue. Therefore, there is no error by the LA.

3) It is the employer that has made a mistake, but a mistake by an employer is not official error.

As there is no “official error” in the cause of the o/p, it is automatically recoverable per [b:bbfd2ff23d]HBR 100(1)[/b:bbfd2ff23d].

However, your post indicated there may have been a delay between the LA receiving the info and then acting on it. If the delay was excessive, that part of the overpayment may well be official error. If that part of the o/p is official error, it is still recoverable if the clmt could reasonably have been expected to realise etc….. (see [b:bbfd2ff23d]HBR 100(2)[/b:bbfd2ff23d]).

Now, the income….

IF the income was legally Tax Credits, then the LA has no choice but to treat it as income in relation to the amount PAID (distinguished from ENTITLEMENT).

However, the Inland Rev has made it clear that Tax Credits had ceased. Therefore, it will be hard to argue that the payments made by the employer were in fact Tax Credits (the description on the pay slips doesn’t matter).

So, the next question is whether or not the employer is seeking recovery of the payments made to the employee. If not, then my view is that the money paid counts as income, in full.

But, if the money is (genuinely) being recovered by the employer (ask for prf if the clmt says this is happening), the net income for the period of the payments will, ultimately be nil. This would (presumably) mean there is / was no HB/CTB o/p.

Probably not what you wanted to hear….. 😯

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