February 2008 News Archive
TCC Back In Westminster 21 February 2008 Tax Credit Casualties will be returning to Westminster in 2008 and inviting all MPs and the Press to an Open Day where representatives from our group (people with tax credit overpayment problems) will be available to talk to politicians and the media about why we need a safer, fairer tax credit system. While we wait for confirmation of the date and venue, we need short Case Studies which will be assembled into a booklet and distributed on the day to people with the power to get this unfair and faulty system properly overhauled. We would need people who are happy to give their name and location (eg. Pat Bloggs - Ipswich), but no other personal details are needed. This is entirely voluntary, down to you, and you can set your own focus. Just to get you started, though, here are some ideas: What is your experience of the tax credit system? Have you been treated fairly, respectfully and as an individual? Have you experienced problems? Have these been properly addressed? How have you found communication and correspondence? Has it all made sense to you? Do you feel your rights have been respected? Have you been threatened with court action at an early stage? Have any important documents gone astray, or have you received correspondence meant for another person? Would you recommend claiming tax credits to others? How has all of this affected you and your family? If you would be happy to talk further to the Press about your experiences, (again, optional), or if you would like the opportunity to be directly involved in the event, please could you let us know? Thank you for your help. Together we can make a difference and get the system improved significantly for others – perhaps even (this time) for ourselves. Please send your case studies to Alison Myers-Ward (ali@taxcreditcasualties.org.uk) [Top]
Do You Have Knowledge of Fraud at The Tax Credits Office 21 February 2008 Andrew Bomford from BBC Radio, who is involved with the Today Programme and the World at One, among other programmes, is researching the issue of fraud, and is very keen to speak to: Anyone who is, or has been on, the receiving end of fraud. This could also include people who have received overpayments in very suspicious circumstances, eg. having bizarre changes applied (apart from HMRC’s salary-zeroing jape) about which they have not notified HMRC (sudden additional children on their claim?). Anyone working for, or who has worked for, HMRC who has knowledge of such matters going on, particularly in relation to any activities of colleagues suggestive of involvement in fraud. He will respect your anonymity, but cannot offer any payment; it would need to be done altruistically, for reasons of social conscience and there cannot be personal gain. Although he has good evidence from one source, he needs to demonstrate that this is not a one-off but that there is corroborating evidence or there have been similar practices elsewhere in HMRC.
Andrew Bomford can be contacted on 02086 249725 or 07802 949367. He is very interested in this issue and very happy to hear from people on the subject of fraud.
I am aware of people from this website/forum and elsewhere who are at the very last stages of the dispute process, who have entered before the forum and our associated website came into being, and have done much of their fighting up until recently on their own. They are honest people who have done nothing wrong, and are innocent of any fraud or deceit. Unless we, and/or the larger welfare organisations/children’s charities who have long been supporting people (such as the Low Incomes Tax Reform Group, Citizens Advice, Child Poverty Action Group, One Parent Families, Contact a Family etc.) can pull out all the stops and find new evidence, or raise legal fees for a test case (sponsorship anyone?) these people face unjust rulings that they must pay back huge sums, with all the hardship that brings. £5000, for instance, even repaid at £5 a month, is £5 less spent on dependents and will be a millstone for many, many years. I implore any HMRC or ex-HMRC staff who have knowledge they could share anonymously, which will help us establish that the system as it stands is not protecting the innocent from fraud, and that honest people are suffering disproportionately, to come forward to Andrew. I would not recommend posting such information on the forum without first having taken steps to make your ID secure, but Andrew, I know, would protect your anonymity. I know that a repayment verdict goes beyond the financial loss and years of hardship it represents; it leaves people feeling they have been accused of negligence and held to blame for something which was never morally their fault, and this is an assault on the integrity of that person, an injustice which I know from personal experience can be harder to forgive than the financial effects. It is a violation of character that can be devastating. So please contact Andrew today on 02086 249725 or 07802 949367 if you have any information about fraud. Thank You. Alison Myers-Ward [Top]
Private Eye 21 February 2008 Credit crunch.
The latest investigation into Gordon Brown’s tax credits fiasco has found that cock-ups and criminals are still costing taxpayers a staggering £lbn a year. The Commons public accounts committee (PAC) last week condemned HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) for failing to deal with errors and fraud that have blighted the child and working tax credit system since it was introduced in 2003.
Still reeling from criticism of “endemic incompetence” following the lost data disc saga and last month’s collapse of the online tax return filing system, HMRC tried to deflect the MPs’ latest attack. It said the accounts committee was basing its report on 2006 data, since when overpayments had fallen by a fifth and accuracy in processing payment had reached 97 percent.
Really? Eye readers who continue to suffer are not convinced. Tina Hammond, from Ipswich, thought she was shot of her £332 child tax credit overpayment problems back in August 2005, when she finally received a letter saying the payment “arose from an error on our part so you will not be asked to pay it back. We are sorry for our mistake...”
The letter even offered to repay the sum if it had already been recovered from her.
The mother of one heard no more for 18 months but then took a phone call from an HMRC employee who said she wanted to discuss the overpayment. The woman demanded Ms Hammond’s name, address, date of birth and insurance number “in order to confirm the right person was on the end of the line”. Naturally, Ms Hammond declined to give such information over the telephone, telling the caller that the matter had been dealt with but adding that if HMRC had any further queries it should put them in writing.
Once again that appeared to be the end of the matter - until two weeks ago when she received a letter from the Tax Credit Overpayment Unit, demanding she pay back the money or face possible court action! TCC Comment: This Private Eye article starts by highlighting high levels of (claimant) fraud, which tends to reduce the impact of any case they proceed to mention because there is always that suggestion of, or possible link with, criminal activity. By association, it seems to imply that claimants aren't honest or don't do things correctly - just what HMRC has always maintained in order to shift the blame from itself. Hence Tax Credit claimants are incorrectly viewed as dishonest, opportunistic, scrounging, undeserving, lazy etc. We will be contacting Private Eye to point out the error of their ways! [Top]
Rotherham Record 20 February 2008 Misery Hidden By Ludicrous System
Tax Credit campaigners have hit back at claims by Inland Revenue officials that the number of people overpaid has been drastically reduced.
 Paula Dean - who set up the Rotherham based Tax Credit Casualties action group - said that figures used by the HM Revenue and Customs hide the misery caused to millions by a “ludicrous” system. She said: “It's interesting that they claim the number of overpayments has reduced so drastically, yet the maths doesn’t work. In 2003/04 the figure equaled £22 billion of overpayments, with accuracy ‘only’ at 78.6 per cent. Yet, by 2005/06, overpayment still costs £1.7 billion even though they were allegedly reaching 97 per cent accuracy.” She said that accuracy had never been at 78 percent. “Figures released clearly show two thirds of all awards are wrongly paid, with one third being overpaid, one third rightly paid, and one third underpaid,” she went on. “HMRC’s accuracy figure has a filter on which discounts all the errors they don’t accept responsibility for.
“All the hundreds of cases I have dealt with involve clear procedural errors, yet HMRC pass these off as claimant error. HMRC expectations of what a claimant should be able to ‘work out’ are unreasonable, especially in the light of the tact they can’t even work it out right. They hide behind figures, hoping we won’t notice the sums don’t actually add up and blame the public for not doing and checking their work for them.”
According to HMRC, improved performance of the Tax Credit system has meant that fewer overpayments are caused by processing or software error. Accuracy in processing and calculating awards rose from 78.6 per cent in 2003-04 to around 97 per cent in 2006-7, the revenue said. The HMRC pointed out that Tax Credit payments were based on household incomes and circumstances that can, of course, change during the course of the year.
Payments are therefore subject to adjustment during the year and, if necessary, at the end of the year once these changes are known, it said.
HMRC claimed that overpayments had fallen by a fifth from £2.2 billion in 2003-4, to £1.8 billion in 2004-05 and to £1.7 billion in 2005-06. A statement said: “The only way to avoid these end year adjustments would be to have a system where payments were fixed, based on past information. Up to 720,000 families who saw their income fall could lose out. There are clear procedures in place to ensure the recovery of overpayments should not cause hardship.”
HMRC expects Tax Credit claimants to check the factual information on the award notices and check the amount going into their bank account matches the amount in the award notice.
HMRC will not expect people to check whether the award was calculated correctly. [Top]
Families forced into poverty by tax blunders 15 February 2008 TCC in the news, again: "Up to 50,000 families in Rotherham and South Yorkshire are being pushed into poverty by tax credits .... " Read the Rotherham Advertiser article here. The person that the Advertiser neglected to mention, on the far right of the photo, is Ali Myers-Ward. [Top]
Another Happy Ending 8 February 2008 It's always great when we have success! One of our 'members', John H, took the trouble to tell us about his happy ending - here's the e-mail he sent: Dear TCC, My odyssey with HMRC has reached a conclusion. I am delighted to tell you, that on following the steps laid out in your Dispute guide, I have today had some wonderful news! My saga continued, last Saturday, when I met with my MP who has been working on my behalf since just before Christmas, dealing with a demand, for £4000 pounds, of an overpayment since 2003-2004. I had already initiated proceedings before I discovered your marvellous website. On review of your advice, I continued on the steps, reaching Step 6 on Saturday. My MP had suggested, in view of the delay in HMRC responding to her letter, that I contact the Parliamentary Ombudsman. Her office were in the process of carrying out this instruction when on Tuesday, I had a telephone call from them (the office) to announce that they were in a receipt of a letter from HMRC stating that, "I do not have to pay the over-payments back to them because they had failed to meet their responsibilities and had calculated my over-payments based on incorrect household income". As you can imagine, I am over-the-moon about this, and felt I should write and thank you for your support, and congratulate you on the sterling work you are all doing in the name of justice! Hopefully, the flood gates are about to open, and HMRC are about to realise that they will have to suffer the consequences of their past incompetence and afford everyone the same privileges! Please let me know if you would like me to post my story on the website. It may do people some good to know that victory is achievable! Kind Regards and Best wishes, John H.
Thank you, John, for sharing the story of your success with other Tax Credit overpayment victims, and letting people know that the Dispute steps work. To anyone reading this - don't give in to HMRC incompetence. We didn't sign up for a loan!! Get angry and get active! [Top]
New Pages on the Website 7 February 2008 We've added two new sections to the website today! TCC Meetings tells you where and when our Regional Meetings are being held. There are links to websites about the venue, maps so you can get there and ready-to-print posters so that you can spread the word! In Letter of the Week , we have prepared letters for you to download, edit for your circumstances and send. The more the merrier! The bigger we can make our "chosen ones" postbag, the better! Happy writing .....
Both sections will always be available from this "Latest News" page, by clicking on the navigation buttons on the left. [Top]
HMRC Update Statement re: Re-finalisation Updated 6 February 2008 A lot of people have asked for an update of the re-finalisation issue (Illegal Recovery by HMRC), so here it is: Regarding the handling of those cases affected by the issue outlined in the recent Ministerial Statement, we need to do some work on some older tax credits awards. We are still drawing up the detailed processes and guidance, and the programme of work We did not follow the correct procedure when reopening some older tax credit awards. Although the revised award was an accurate reflection of the households’ new circumstances, the process by which we dealt with the new information was not correct – we should have notified customers in writing, at the time, that we were examining the award after finalisation, but did not do so in certain cases. We intend to review those cases where we think we have incorrectly made decisions which have reduced entitlement. If we do come across any underpayment situations, we will put them right, as normal. As we review the cases concerned and set aside the incorrect revision we expect that, in all but a small minority of the cases, we will be able to correct the procedural error without there being any change to the payments already made. The fact that a customer may be affected for 2003/04 (for example) does not necessarily mean that following years’ awards are affected too - customers will have had independent decisions made on awards for each year as those years have been finalised. [Top]
Tax Credits Not Improving 5 February 2008 The latest report from the Public Accounts Select Committee says that nearly two million families are still being placed in debt by tax credit overpayments every year. You can read the report here. Read the BBC News article about the report. Amongst other things, HMRC seem to be proud that they have achieved 97% accuracy in processing payments. This, by implication, means that they get 3% of them wrong!! 3% of 6 million = 180,000 inaccurately processed payments. Still proud, Mr.Brown, Mr. Darling, HMRC? Angry about this? Contact your MP and do something about it. [Top]
TCC on TV - Tax Credit Debt Worry 4 February 2008 Alison Myers-Ward, one of the TCC National Coordinators, was interviewed for this news story by Meridian TV. Nicholas Scurr and his family have cancelled their child tax credits because they are worried at being pushed further into debt following a £2,500 "overpayment". As usual, HMRC ignore the facts and produce the standard propaganda. You can watch the news report online. Why not take a look at Half of tax credit claimants “less likely to claim in future”, the results of a survey carried out in late 2007 by Citizens Advice. [Top]
HMRC Contractors Totally Ignore Security of Data? 4 February 2008 From comments posted on YouTube yesterday, (and picked up by both ourselves and other websites), Fujitsu Services, who are the major IT contractors for HMRC, are allegedly totally ignoring the security of Tax Credit claimants data. If true, it shows that we are once again being patronised and fed lip service by both HMRC and the Treasury. See the entry for 4th February at HMRC Is Shi*e . What are the IT contractors doing handling claimants data anyway? Isn't their job hardware, software and database management? When are HMRC and the Government going to get a grip? [Top]
HMRC Publishes New Version of COP 26 2 February 2008 COP 26 is HMRC's code of practice on overpayment recovery. On the 1st February, they published a new version. See the new COP 26 at http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/leaflets/cop26.pdf . See TCC's thoughts on the New COP26. Read what the LITRG have to say about it here . Read the BBC News article about the new COP 26. [Top] | 
