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I recieve child tax credits and couldnt survive without them, if they are being stopped whats being done to replace them? some mothers still believe that there place is at home looking after under 16s and making sure that they are being bought up and not dragged up like the other 75% of latch key hooligans that are running riot in out streets and collecting asbos, Is it our fault that our country is in financial distress and that our husbands are on low wages, or is it the fact that we dont have enough decent jobs to go round, if we could go and work in an other country as easily as people can here we might have more chance. I might add that i have worked when able to fit in with my husbands hours but would not ever put the cost of holidays and designer labels over the importance of my childs upbringing and future, i might add that i have 3 amazing confident children 2 of which have now left home, that have never been in trouble in any way and that now both have full time jobs and pay there own way in life without claiming benefits, but only because i have been there to guide them, i couldnt have done that without help but they are not now costing the country a fortune in police and prison costs or medical costs from drug rehabilitation or patching them up from fighting or doing other stupid things.

Child Tax Credits aren’t being stopped, Karen. Quite a lot of people seem to think they are, though, and it is because of Labour’s scare-mongering during the election campaign.

All the new Government has said is that they will stop people who earn over £40,000 or £50,000 a year from being able to claim Tax Credits. I guess that doesn’t include us, then!

Your letter to David Cameron is a welcome attempt at righting the tax credit wrongs. Unfortunately, we now have a cabinet made up of some of the richest and most privileged men (where are the women?) for some sixty years. When blatant misappropriation of £40,000 by a minister is apparently forgiven by parliamentary colleagues with easy excuses and sympathy, and the man in question shrugs off the matter by writing a cheque to pay back what he has ‘mistakenly claimed’, we are never going to have the slightest understanding of the misery caused by the sloppy, uncaring and unjust staff of the tax credits office.
Tax credit casualties will get no sympathy from the coalition government. They simply won’t be able to understand what all the fuss is about.

I agree with Dr Smith (above)up to a point but it must be remembered that it was the previous Labour administration that introduced Tax Credits and presided over the chaotic system of administration that accompanies them. Presumably it was the same administration who were behind HMRC taking such a hard line with recovering no fault overpayments. Many members of the Labour cabinet also came from privileged backgrounds with public school education etc, and seemed to have little idea of what life in the real world is like so I don’t see how things will be any worse!

[...] on from our letter to David Cameron, I’ve put together a letter that everyone can send to their MPs, asking them to support our [...]

We have just found out that we have been overpaid just over 15000.00 . We are a low income family i work 19k and my partner dont. Taking into consideration the whole family icome, how can they expect us to repay, when we have no saving i would like to see how many people with six young kids can survive and pay this back. any help would be welcome..

“A particularly vile practice of HMRC is the annulment of awards and the fact that they make no allowance for losses within the postal system. Should their end of year paperwork be lost at any stage of its travels through the postal system, and not recorded as received by the Tax Credit computer system, the whole of the previous year’s award is demanded back as an overpayment. There are no second chances.”

Not strictly true. Firstly the overpayment will be for any payments made in the CURRENT financial year (the date of termination is 05/04/current year). Secondly there is a “second chance”, this year the claiment has two months from the issue of the Statement Of Account (letter notifying cancellation) to call with income from previous year, and the claim will be restored.

I’m not defending tax credits – I work on it and believe me it’s very frustating – but I think it’s important to clarify the facts.

Sorry – made a mistake myself there. I should say the claimant has until 30/09/10 to call up to restore their claim, not two months from the SOA.

I do broadly agree with your letter though. Wait til the new income threshholds (eventually going from £25k to £5k) kick in, overpayments will go through the roof. The entire system of tax credits is fundamentally flawed, how can someone accurately predict their income for the coming year?

Please understand that the vast majority of staff that you speak to on the helpline do the very best they can, with rubbish systems, inconsistent guidance, all the while being chronically understaffed.

[...]  Read Our Letter To David Cameron [...]

I have had a phone call from the tax ceredit office today stating they have over paid me at christmas they stoped my payments saying due to me being off sick due to a car crash and now getting ESA they where stopping payment and only getting the child part i disputed this and a few months later they sent me a cheque stating that i was entitled and this is the back payment i phoned them to check and they said this was right today they now state they had made a mistake again and they will be claiming the overpayment back if it was not for the negligence of a nhs hospital missing 22 fracture then after 10 days in hospital they sent me home 10 days later i was rushed back in which they found the mistake due to a double mistake i am suffering both finacially and medically please can you advise

Ignorant people thats all i can say.
their parents must have dragged them up as they have no maners, and will not reply to anyone.
I think they must also be iliterate as they dont know how to write or rely to anything you send them.
must be a need to get into No10 as the past residents were the same.

Hello
here is the Appeal I send to TAX Credit from whom i received a letter telling me that they have received my appeal and that i should hear from them by 9th dec 2010. thats it.
what am i suppose to to until then ?????????? i work full time . i am not well enough to do overtime . It is out of the question that i should ask my daughter to stop her studies and look for a job . that is what tax credit is for . to allow young people to further their education ang secure a better life. i have exhausted my savings ,which i had saved over the years for my daughter,s 18th birthday . i have run up quite a high credit card bill which i should have been able to gradually pay when my tax credit had come though . I AM LEFT WITH VERY LITTLE MONEY ,LOTS OF STRESS WHICH IS N HELPING WITH MY MENTAL HEALTH . I HAVE BEEN REFERED TO THE COMMUNITY MENTAL HEALTH TEAM BY MY GP FOR MORE CANCELLING AND ALL BECOSE EMPLOYEES OF TAX CREDIT SIMPLY DIDNT DO THERE JOBS AND I WASNT WELL ENOUGH TO PICK UP ON IT .ITS DISGRACEFULL . CITIZEN ADVICE BUREAU is helping me to communicate with them at the moment as my daughter IS at college AND they should start making some payments otherwise i am going to find myself in a very difficult financial state which will not just affect me but also affect my daughter’s future
thank you very much for reading
regards
jeannine

Braintree the 17th July 2010

I am writing this letter as firstly it is extremely difficult and costly to get through on the phone and because it is pointless if and when I do get through as I might as well be speaking a different language for all the results that is put through my letter box
Dear Sir/Madam
On receiving my TC602 from you telling me that I am not intitled to anything, I got a very big shock .My daughter Gabrielle is still in full time education , has been all year and will still be after the summer holidays
Big panic !!! What is going on ???????? I know I am intitled to Tax Credit ,same as any other parent in my situation , single and earning similar wages.
With the help of a friend ,as I do find your paperwork very hard to understand nor do I understand how u work out how much anyone is entitled , we looked at my last year ‘s TC602 . My friend explained to me that it looks as if you have stopped the payment in AUGUST as gaby’s birthday is in sept . I thought the reason for the payments stopping was that you had worked out that it was all I was intitled to as the previous year my earnings were higher and as you carry on the payments until the claim is sorted and it never gets sorted until about june as a rule , I didn’t question it partly because I had no reason to believe that there was a mistake as I had send you ALL THE INFORMATIONS . After all you got my earnings right so why did the rest get missed ???? I even had to call you last year around june time to explain that I needed my TC602 for Gaby’s EMA and to put an application through for POST 16 Transport assistance as she travels every day to COLCHESTER 6TH FORM from Braintree on school day . The lady I spoke to was very helpull even though she at this time could not find my application even though I HAD SEND IT ON REGISTERED DELIVERY which you must have had as I was told by the post office that it HAD been DELIVERED at yr adress when I made some inquiry . After giving all my informations again to your colleague , she assured me she would put it in the post ASAP . I received my TC602 about a week later . I send it IMEDIATELY to both EMA and POST 16 T RANSPORT .
BOTH Agencies must have been satisfied with the TC602 as gaby has been having her EMA every week of the school year .they even awarded her a Bonus at Chrismas for good attendance and achievements . I also qualified for free transport for Gaby to travel from Braintree to COLCHESTER 6TH FORM . I AM ENCLOSING ALL PROOFS OF THESES

Braintree ,the 26th july 2010
I had to stop my letter because I had a few bad days . I have been back to my GP who has upped the dose of my medication also to cancelling which I have been having for the past 6 months
I NEED YOU TO READ ALL OF THE INFORMATION AND LETTER I HAVE SEND YOU BEFORE YOU MAKE A DECISION ON MY APPEAL . IT IS ADDING A LOT MORE STRESS TO MY PRESENT HEALTH THAT I REALLY DO NOT NEED . THE INFORMATION I SEND YOU below DESCRIBES THE ROLLERCOASTER THAT MY LIFE HAS BEEN THE PAST FEW YEARS . The bits I have underlined are still with me now and it is a struggle everyday to get through the day . But I am still here and still working as I do not want to give up .PLEASE HELP ME STAY THERE
Mental health and mental illness , despite more and more education and research still has a big stigma and it has meant over the years that feeling lonely and isolated and feeling like a freak has been part of my life too for such a long time . This Sertraline tablets although it is early days ,as I have only been on it for a few weeks , is somehow making things a bit brighter in my head , its waking me up to things around me instead of making me feel like an automaton like previous medications I have been on over the years but I have a long way to go and I need you to help me by being fair .
I HAVE/HAD send all relevant informations for last year’s claim , I HAVE spoken to your people on the phone as explained earlier and I had no reason to believe you hadn’t had all this information until I received the last letter from you telling me I was not intitled to anything ,despite speaking again to 2 of your collegues about a week before receiving my TC602 . I rang as I hadn’t heard anything and was told by the first person that I wasn’t getting anything .When I ask him to look again as it is not possible as my daughter is still in full time education at college, he passed me onto another person , who looked at my file ,as he said ‘oh yes I see there has been a mistake and I will sort it and send you a revised TC602 .
At this point I still hadn’t realised that you had stopped the payment in August last year because you believed that gaby was not going into further education. But why would have?? I believed that the payments had stopped because it was all you had worked out I was intitled as the previous year my earnings were significantly higher .I had called you last year(June time) as my claim was not coming through to say that I needed my TC602 for gaby’s EMA and for free school transport (POST 16 TRANSPORT) . The lady I spoke to on the phone was very helpful and I received my TC602 shortly after that phone call which I send straight away to thoses two Agencies and both my claims were accepted . ( I have enclosed copies of letters for theses )

Now I do not know what happened but something did and it isn’t my fault!!! You got my the figures of my earnings right so what happened to the information about my Gaby’s college?
Needless to say I am finding it very difficult to do this claim and a friend is helping me understand and stay focus and not give in to the panic I feel right now making it very difficult to think clearly to retrace events
You stopped paying me last year in August and I still do not have any thing coming this year even though Gaby is still at college after the summer break . My friend has helped me to look through the figures and has written the corrected amount on the form that I am sending you a copie of.
I have being told that it is unlikely that I would get more than 3 month back payments but it is not right .It is so unfair that I should pay for someone’s mistake or because someone lost the original application with all the relevant information .
Turning the table around if you pay someone too much , you expect and take all ur money back or prosecute if you feel they have mislead you .
It was unfortunate that I have not been well for some time and just keep my head above water . But lets face it if EMA and POST 16 TRANSPORT did not pick up that you had not awarded me anything (despite being trained to deal with all this kind of forms ) what chance did I have ???????
PLEASE HELP ME I want my daughter to have that chance of an education . Its bad enough her having to cope with a mum like me even if am trying so hard to get better . I am asking you to be fair to me . I have always worked and payed my taxes other than when I was on maternity leave . I have never claimed unemployment benefit nor anythink I didn’t think I was not intitled to . I am not asking for charity

Thank you

Jeannine pitts

OH YES
I FORGOT TO SAY I ALSO RECEIVED NOTICE OF OVERPAYMENT OF TAX CREDIT FOR THE PERIOD ENDING 05/04/2101 DATED 27TH JULY ASKING ME TO REPAY THEM £164.56 AS THEY ARE STILL ASSUMIMG THAT GABY IS NOT AT COLLEGE DESPITE ALL THE PHONE CALL AND PROOF I HAVE SEND THEM
BUT GABY WAS AT COLLEGE LAST SCHOOL TERM !!!!!!
AND SHE IS STILL AT COLLEGE THIS YEAR STARTING SEPT 2010!!!

I JUST SO INCREDIBLE THAT DECENT HONEST PEOPLE ARE TREATED LIKE THAT
THERE HAS TO BE CHANGES !!!!!
WE ARE SUPPOSED TO LIVE IN A FAIRER SOCIETY ,ARE WE NOT?

THANK YOU FOR READING AGAIN
REGARDS
JEANNINE PITTS

Hello Im guessing from what you have posted jeannine gabby is missing from your account/claim she has reached 16 and the computer sytem cant be changed to have her reinstated, i reckon the computer or staff have niled her out. im having the same troubles all ctc payments have been stopped with no notification letter from tc, even though i renewed, i know from experience that this means an overpament is looming in the system. in my case i was told by tc staff that i didnt have to notify them that my 16 year old is starting college this september, that they just know and will carry on payment for my 16 old, i did notify them anyway but i reckon either inexpereinced staff couldnt change the system or the computer wouldnt let them. either way they will blame the stopping of my payments as a failure to renew which will be blamed on me. my advice is start a dispute and complaint in writing immediately. even if they reckon they can sort it its best to get the ball rolling because problems just keep rearing their ugly heads in the future, and tc staff lie when they say is all under control, because its not. best wishes and good luck

Hi JEANNINE PITTS.

I work on the tax credit helpline, for obvious reasons I cannot give my real name. From what I can gather, TCO (tax credit office) have removed your child from your claim, and as such your entitlement to child tax credit has stopped. You have appealed the decision, and been told it will be addressed by December 2010.

It sounds to me like your claim has been terminated after the 31st August following your daughters 16th birthday.

Are you still getting any payments at all? If not, you should first submit a new application. This will be treated as a fresh claim, and if your daughter is still at college then your payments should restart in the meantime, so you get the money you need. You should also check if you are receiving child benefit (call them on 0845 302 1444).

There isn’t much you can do to speed up your appeal to be honest – they take ages. My advice to to do a new application, and let the appeal take its course. If you do wish to complain, call the tax credit helpline and tell the advisor you wish to make a formal complaint, and ask to be referred to a customer relations manager.

Without wanting to be rude, you are unlikely to get a detailed reply to your letter, if you do want to write you should be short and concise about what exactly you want to know. The person reading your letter will probably never have seen your claim before.

We have just been told that my Husbands disability element of working tax credit has been stopped, the reason is that although he works 16 hours a week,and his doctors letter says that he has the disabilities he says he has. because we have never wanted to be a burden and have NEVER claimed anything else they are stopping the disability element which means thats our second overpayment.Why should someone with disabilities be forced to work more hours then they are capable of? Seems in this country if you deserve it you never get it.

My husband has just been informed that as he is not in receipt of any Qualifying benefits his disability element has been stopped and they want all the money back that has been paid to us since 2004. We have never claimed to be in receipt of any other benefits my Husband works 37 hours a week.
He is in constant pain with a arthritis in his knees and back and also part of his spine is fused so he has limited movement in his back and is in constant pain. He has special equipment in his job chair Desek etc. They are claiming we have never told them that we did not receive any benefits well surley they noticed it was missing off the form, and i would have thought they would need proof of these benefits before they awarded the disability element. I always notify them of any change’s we have and was only on the phone in June and was told everything was fine, then a couple of weeks later 16 letters dropped through our door and then this week another 16 came through. We are so stressed it is affecting my husband health a lot he is so worried.

my wife was informed by a letter that there was a error on our tax credits by way of her earning. this letter dropped on our doorstep 2 days after we should of been payed our tax credits into our account. They stopped our payments without even telling us this. I earn 20k and my wife was working for a local NHS hospital. the hospital was closed down and my wife was TUPEE to a private company. She contacted the tax credits office and updated our details, as we are all told to do if anything changes. But because her contact with the NHS does not run out until 31 Dec. So of course there is a difference on here earning. The tax credit people ( if you can call them people) say there is nothing they can do until they see here P45 which will arive sometime after Dec 31.

we have been left in a extremly difficult situation as we have 3 children under 8. one of which is at nursery, so my wife can work. because they have stopped our money we cant pay the nursery fee and my wife has had little option but to give up work. She begged the tax credit people to help, but there could not give a damn!

if this dos’ent get sorted soon there is a fair chance that we could get into difficulty with our mortgage and other bills

this is just so unfair and and i’m stressed and not sleeping.

Myself and my husband find ourseleves in a very difficult postition with CTC. We gained custody of my husband’s children in 2008 and made the claim to HMRC for CTC which was awarded with no fuss or paperwork having to be sent, However we go forward to 8th December 2010 and we receive a letter from HMRC saying that as of the current tax year 6th April 2010- 5th April 2011 that they believe that we do not have the main responsibility for the children, I then send then next day recorded delivery the a copy of the Residence order dated 10th June 2009 and a letter from my husband’s solicitor confirming that yes we do have custody I also write to my MP and to David Cameron and I am told that I can be waiting until 20th April 2011 for anything to be sorted, they have stopped £156 per week as of 18th February they will owe us £1500 when I call HMRC I am just told there is an open appeal, when I ask why it will take until 20th April 2011 considering that they have all the relevant information I an told that’s how long it takes. Has anyone got any ideas of what more I could be doing please as it is having a major affect on the family. Thanks in advance.

I have been communicating with HMRC since 2003 regarding mistakes that they made in awarding me tax credits. To cut a long story short, mistakes continued and I am now approaching The Adjudicator Stage in my plight not to have to pay back an overpayments demand for almost £10,000.
Did Mr. Cameron reply to your letter?

We took custody of my neice on june 1st 2010 and applied for tax credits for her as we are both disabled she attends nursery costin us £14 a week,we are on benifits dwp do not pay for chilldren anymore ,and as of todays date we are still awaiting our claim to be processed,we are in receipt of child benefit,and have been waiting 10 month ,filled out all the forms they asked ,wrote to my mp who wrote to the tresury secretary and still we are waiting,and the child needs the money these people sit in head office ,you can’t talk to them they take 14 days to process a recorded next day delivery letter,they do not aknowlege my letters nor send back any paper work I send them,they insist the mother of the child is still got the child on an on going claim,this is rubbish,they say they are writing to her,she was evicted from her drug home,and has had no contact with the child for 10 month,she is living rough last we heard and tax credit are more interested in a heroin taker than us bringing up our neice who is only 3,we dress her feed her and love her like she was our own child,but she can’t get tax credit because they are writing to her mother at no address no where,its tax credit office that puts children into poverty the whole system has to change and take into consideration the people who are bringing up the children of people who don’t care about there children as long as they can get their daily drugs ,its a disgrace,it really is

Due to the way tax credits were calculated at the start (using income from 18 months previously to work out the payments in 2003), I was massively overpaid in the first year. Instead of reducing my payments in 2004, HMRC overpaid again. The result is I owe £6500 in overpayments.

I have telephoned the help line many times over the years to express concern, I even asked if I could start making small monthly payments to reduce the amount owed. I was told that I couldn’t do this unless I stopped my claim, and not to worry as they would recover the overpayment by reducing future payments.

I wrote to my MP a couple of years back expressing concern that at some point HMRC might ask for the overpayment back, I got brushed off with a thanks for your letter reply.

Today I finally learnt that HMRC are now asking for a full repayment of £6700. Very generously they will allow me to pay this at £175 a month. All very well, but like everyone else in the country I’m now struggling to make ends meet in the wake of the recession. £175 a month is a lot of money to find and it will take over 3 years to repay.

I didn’t ask HMRC to lend me money, I didn’t ask for them to store up this loan until a point in the future they decided they want it back. It’s not my fault the system was flawed for self employed people.

tax credits sent me a letter asking me to prove my childcare which i did six months ago and it was all fine. they have asked me to prove my child care again letter dated 12 april 2011 and to prove it by the 12 may 2011 my tax creits was due on friday 6th may and didnt arrive when i asked them they said they had paid me i then asked my bank where it was they said we have not received any payment talk to tax credits. i then phoned tax credits again and then they said head office has stopped your payment can they do this without telling you?
as my payment was due before the due date of providing the information does this mean im quilty till proved inocent i currently have £20 in my account i live mainy of taxcredits at the momment they have left me with no money i have three children 7 4 and 18 months seems to me they want to force peoplke out of work and not into it i think the system stinks i have left a message with my MP i will let you know the out come

We too have been hit with a large bill from The family tax credit office. We started claiming tax credits when my husband lost his job in 2006, We lost our house and we are still in rented accomadation despite us both now being in full time employment!We have four children all in full time education but for the last two years we have not recived any tax credits.We contacted our local M.P. last year as we belived we should have been entitled to some help and did not understand why we had been overpaid in previous years after a long meeting with him he assured us he would help! That was the last we heard and according to the Tax office they had not had a call from him regarding our case. We have always informed the tax office of any changes,and filled out the relevant paperwork every year! We recived a bill this morning from the Tax credit office for five thousand pounds to be paid within four weeks!I have sent a letter of dispute and again contacted our M.P. but feel at loss of what else I can do!We are a decent loving hard working family,we have just about enough money to survive,we do not have holidays,we do not have nights out, no treats. I do not sleep at night due to the financial stress and the guilt of not being able to give my children more. I have to force myself to remain positive and to keep going,it is getting harder and harder to do so!Tears stream down my face as I write this! I am worried sick about this large bill from the tax credit office and the impact it will have on us as a family,we do not have that kind of money we still can not get any credit except from a door step lender who charge the earth in interest rates. What will I do? Something has to be done to help all of these decent people Mr Cameron!We are all just doing the best we can to survive life and making sure we bring up our children in a decent,honest and positive way!Please,PLEASE, have a heart and soul and sort out this mess for all of us !

P.S. For the past two years We have received no payments however the Tax credits say we have been overpaid in the last two years !How is that,How can we be overpaid on nothing ?

We are in exactly the same position as everyone else on here. We were overpaid the first year as my husband is self employed. I have no idea how they work now but, in 2005 they had no clue how to work out our claim. We informed them constantly of our change of circumstances, which happened fairly regularly because of the nature of my husbands job. (he works on fixed term contracts which can last anything from 4 weeks to 5 months). This caused no end of problems, but they insisted we were entitled to the money we were receiving. About 3 years ago they decided to take back the money they had overpaid by taking small amounts each week from our claim. I called them and had one of the strangest conversations I have ever had with one of there employees. I told the person I spoke to,I would prefer they took all the money they were giving me, instead of just a couple of pounds a week, so that it would be paid off quicker. Her reply was; “you are entitled to this money so we cant do that”. When I told her they were putting me into future debt and that I would rather do without at that moment, her reply was; “if you didn’t want this money, you shouldn’t have made the claim”. I was banging my head off a brick wall! I made no more contact with them until last year when I was informed the amount I owed had now risen. I couldn’t believe it. Once again, I had a conversation with someone who informed me it was all my fault!. Finally, I have received nothing from them for more than a year, as they are trying to recoup what they say is due to them. Yesterday, I received 3 letters with 3 different amounts they say I owe to them, including £45 for this year and £88 for last year. How can I owe them money when I haven’t received any? The total amount they say I owe them is £3,500 which they would like by the 29th September. And, if I can’t manage that, they will accept 12 installments! I know an accountant who used to work for HMRC (but not CTC) and he has offered to have a look back at all our correspondence. However, because of the knowledge he has of the way they work, he is certain they will never accept responsibility for their mistakes and all money owed will be taken back no matter what the circumstances.I wish I had never filled in that bloody form!!

P.S

I would just like to add that today, we received another two letters from HMRC informing of us of another two overpayments.
We now owe them £11,127.00!!!! I have just made an appointment
with my local MP to discuss this with him. I also phoned HMRC and I have been told this amount will be put on hold whilst I make a dispute claim. Wish me luck.

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