Do They Know It's Christmas Time At All?

by Alison Myers-Ward

I’m blogging this, Slavetothetaxman, rather than adding a comment, as others might find this helpful too – I hope. Here’s what I would do. I’d write a stern letter to HMRC and quote their own responsibilities back to them. Here’s what HMRC say these are:

HM Revenue and Customs should:

• Give correct advice
• Record and use information accurately
• Correct errors notified by claimant
• Update reported changes in circumstances within 30 days

So I’d go back to the letter where HMRC admit their mistake and quote the words they’ve used and give the date of the letter so they can verify if themselves, as they are a tad daft when it comes to reviewing cases. Evidently somewhere along the line they have messed up on at least one of the above. I would quote the sentence or sentences which apply to them.

While doing this, I’d also take a look at all the data I’d been sent in response to my Subject Access Request (see www.TaxCC.org dispute pack for details) and cite every separate instance I was now aware of in which HMRC failed to meet their responsibilities to me.

After soothing the pain in my newly writers-cramped fingers, I would next study the responsibilities HMRC sets out for its claimants (retrospectively, of course – these people aren’t entirely stupid):

The main responsibilities for the claimant (from 1 February 2008) are to:

• Give accurate, complete and up to date information
• Report changes in circumstances
• Use the checklist to check every award notice
• Tell HMRC of errors in an award notice within 1 month
• Check that amounts received agree with the award notice

Then I would cite every example I can identify of my being fully honest and compliant. Did my income change? My couple status? Did I have a baby? Claim DLA? If something changed and I reported this, I’d flag up in a similar way to the above how I had met my responsibilities. If by any chance I failed to meet a responsibility, I’d consider why that was. Am I evil and corrupt? Well, my children think I am at times, but actually, no. So why didn’t I do this? If, for example, I didn’t do it because it wasn’t intuitive and HMRC never told me I had to, or told me I had to do something different – why, that would mean that HMRC failed to ‘give correct advice’, wouldn’t it?

Once I’d written this letter, I’d ‘cc’ it to the world and her husband. So at the very least, that’s my elected MP, and (the amazing) Paula Dean at Tax Credit Casualties. However, it could also be copied to Stephen Timms, Financial Secretary to the Treasury who apparently oversees tax credits, and any representatives I had from organizations such as CAB, Tax Aid, LITRG, CPAG, One Parent Families, my Trade Union Welfare department, etc. Oh yes, a newspaper journalist might also be interested, so I’d copy my current favourite in for good measure.

Bullies of the HMRC kind prefer to beat people up in dark alleys – they don’t relish doing it under the watchful eye of the News of the World or Sunday Times. In my experience, brave folk who are happy to talk to a reporter often get the speediest resolution to their case ever to be seen.

Good luck. Justice may yet prevail.

Do they know it’s Christmas time at all?

www.TaxCC.org

Criminals Are Treated Better Than This!

by Slavetothetaxman

I have been fighting HMRC for over 4 years!! They sent me a letter stating they were sorry but they had mis-calculated our award and that it was their fault but we must pay back more than £6,400.00!! I have repeatedly asked them to explain how this happened but they won't. There is no way we can pay this back. What can we do if they have admitted it was their fault but won't stick to what the government promised, that if it is their fault we won't have to pay it back? Can we take action against them for changing their mind? Their code of practice states that if you can prove it was their fault and that you believed the calculations were correct you don't have to pay the money back, but they have gone against their own code of practice so now what? We have almost had a breakdown over this but we have to pay for their mistakes!! Where do I turn to? I have done everything I can to get this written off but they keep sending the same mindless letters out stating I haven’t provided any new information. I know that because they made the mistake not me!! Criminals are treated better than this!

www.TaxCC.org

"A Very Merry Christmas!" from HMRC

by Fiona Morrison

Well, I'm sure most of you have been through very similar. I reached a point today where I felt close to despair so went searching for people in a similar situation and found you guys and a lovely group on facebook too. It has helped me feel better already.

I have always been honest with the Tax Credits people - I believe it's the best way to be but I am wondering if it's made my situation worse. I had trundled along with the odd correction here and there and had paid back various 'miscalculations' over the years as my partner at the time was self-employed. Par for the course I thought. So, when my partner and I split up I let them know and thought - great, plain sailing from here.

Not true. I let them know the day he left. They told me I hadn't let them know till three days AFTER he left. I had to ring them to chase some promised paperwork you see. These three days, they later tell me, caused an overpayment of around £450. For 3 days I asked? Well, not actually true was the eventual answer I got - but due to the nature of the payments (two weeks in arrears and two weeks in advance) it meant that the payment I had received needed clawing back by them. Why didn't they say that in the first place? And why hadn't they noted the information the first time I told them? Their word against mine. So, I queried it and they said no dice. Pay us back!

In July 2007 they pay me an additional £700 odd quid days after my normal payment. I ring them the day I received the payment telling them that surely this MUST be a mistake. They say no it's not a mistake. I say, are you sure coz I don't want you asking for it back later. We are sure madam, you will not be asked for this back.

Christmas 2007 they ask for it back, and some more thrown on top for good measure.

I have pointed this out to them, they know I called them the day that payment went out but it seems to have made no difference whatsoever! My partner and I had a brief try at our relationship again but split after only a few months causing more changes. Guess what? You got it - apparently I owe them even more money. Some of it is a joint liability for myself and my ex. Have you contacted him I said. Yes madam we have contacted him. Today, they send a letter to him addressed here. I am guessing that they have NOT contacted him before now as they clearly do NOT have his address on their system. A bare-faced lie from someone? One of various over the years? Do they actually provide standardised training on their system to their staff? I tried about a month ago to dispute their claim again. I was told no dice, unless I had new information and that I had no right to appeal. Is that even legal????? So, I have decided, I am going to my MP in an attempt to kick up a fuss.

This is the second Christmas in a row they have asked me for a huge sum (last Christmas it was £1000, this year it's nearly £1500).

It concerns me that I am in this situation when all I have done is do what they have asked. The system is clearly not working. Although I have, and still do on occasion, feel close to despair, I am not going to lie down and take this. This system was set up to help us. Causing stress and increasing financial hardship is not help by anyone's definition.

I will update you as I progress my case. It's hard to find the strength sometimes as it really wears ya down (as I am sure you all know only too well!) but I'll be damned if I let this rubbish system get the better of me!

www.TaxCC.org

Another day, another dumb letter ....

by Paula Dean

I get a lot of HMRC stamped mail to my address what with handling some peoples cases for them, but I can always tell straight away which ones involve my case (they address me differently), so when this one came through the door last Friday I ignored it for a few days. This has become standard practice for me when it involves my own case. When I get a HMRC letter regarding someone else’s case it stirs me into action, but when I know it’s about my own case I just dread opening it because I know the content is going to send me ranting to my files, cursing about never ending circles.

I know from a lot of the people I talk to that many feel this way when they receive case letters. We know it doesn’t really work, but we try avoiding it for a while, knowing full well that opening the letter could spoil the day, result in cancelled plans and endless contradicting phonecalls and mean more hours spent looking for and searching paperwork. And that’s just if it doesn’t contain threats of immediate prosecution or pulling our financial rug out from underneath us again.

But when I finally opened the letter, I honestly believe that if I had been within striking distance of the author I’d be in more trouble right now then having a £5K ‘debt’ I didn’t cause to deal with.

To cut a long story short, this letter was a response to a Request to Reconsider Recovery letter I had supposedly sent HMRC recently. Immediately I was confused as my dispute is with the Parliamentary Ombudsman and has been for about a year now. So why would I have written a RRR to HMRC. The letter then goes on at some length to detail known facts about my case and then rehashes the same excuses used previously to try and pass off the ‘overpayment’ as my fault.

What’s shocking about this is that actually the letter being ‘responded’ to was not a RRR or anything of that type, and in fact it was addressed to my local tax office, not the Preston TCO Customer Care (sic) dept that was responding. It concerned a recent phonecall where the local tax officer insisted that I had to do HMRC jobs for them in keeping the local tax office up to date with the status of my dispute. I was writing to 1) prove the status of my dispute and 2) to complain at being expected to do HMRC liaison for them.

Nowhere in this short 3 paragraph letter did I request HMRC reconsider the overpayment or request a re-run of their excuses. The nature of the letter is plainly evident - as is my name, gender and title, yet the chauvinist pigs still addressed it to my husband!

So what has this exercise in futility achieved? Nothing! My case is still with the PO, no one has responded to my complaint about being expected to do HMRC’s job for them, I have now had to write and research 2 letters not even relevant to the overpayment and the HMRC author managed to spend several working hours on a response to a letter they plainly didn’t read.

This afternoon I agreed to take part in some ‘customer research’ being conducted for the Adjudicators Office. I mainly just had to answer; agree / disagree and strongly / slightly to about 30 questions, but I got the chance to comment at the end of the interview. When asked what I would like to say about the Adjudicators Office, (resolving to remain constructive lol) I said that “I felt the AO did not take relevant circumstances into account when adjudicating disputes. Members of the public when complaining about the conduct of a government body to the AO are being expected to conduct themselves in the same manner of the agencies involved. I.e. we are expected to keep as good a tax record as the Tax Office even when we didn’t know we would need to. Yet this is not our professional capacity (i.e. our job), while it is solely HMRC’s, so they should be expected to do it better than us."
To quote the ironic recent HMRC letter; “it is clear that we have not handled your tax credits claim as well as we should have, and that we have failed to provide the level of service which you are entitled to expect and should received.”

No kidding!

Paula (disheartened? Maybe a little .... Giving up? Never!)

http://www.taxcc.org/

Why tax credit overpayments must be written off

by Alison Myers-Ward

When I told the Sunday Times recently (27th July 2008) that the ruthless pursuit of tax credit overpayments caused by the Revenue’s own unfit IT systems, random errors and maladministration had ‘destroyed lives’, HMRC rejected our call for a full write off. They grumbled that our audacious Tax Credit Casualties group ‘wants us to write off billions of pounds worth of taxpayer money’.

It’s true – we do!

The sum involved reflects the scale of HMRC’s ineptitude, which will never improve whilst victims foot the bill and bear the pain alone. Low-income ‘customers’ took up Brown’s hollow ‘Money with your name on it’ incentive to work hard for low wages. They gave the Revenue their correct details and trusted the ‘experts’ to do their jobs.

Instead, the Revenue miscalculated their awards in ways impossible for claimants to spot: HMRC failed to act on changes promptly notified, failed to detect criminals hijacking honest claims (including many of their own employees), zeroed people’s salaries, made children vanish and overpayments appear, and generally acted true to their data-disc losing form. Hapless claimants accepted and spent the money in good faith, only to receive shock demands for thousands of pounds a few years down the line. Two things are abundantly clear. Firstly, an extraordinary amount of taxpayers’ money was routinely handed away by HMRC in error – about £2.8 billion. Secondly, there is a growing feeling that coming back for this several years later only compounds the problem, heaping injustice, terror and despair on the innocent. Didn’t Brown’s mother ever tell him that two wrongs don’t make a right?

Brown’s New Labour and HMRC have pulled off a remarkable coup: they have passed off their errors and failure as the claimants’ own. No public debate on writing off tax credit overpayments is complete without Mr. or Ms. Angry erroneously demanding that Working Tax Credit recipients find themselves a job and stop ‘scrounging’. Far from avoiding the stigma of claiming top-up benefits by accepting tax credits, claimants find themselves in a double-whammy. It’s a TAX credit, so overpayments are treated as tax arrears, with the full fury of the tax office unleashed, and the onus on the recipient to prove their honesty rather than on HMRC to prove their negligence. Yet in the public’s eyes, it’s still a benefit, and one they begrudge. Add the prefix ‘claimant’ to all discussions of ‘fraud and error’, and the victim cannot win.

Small wonder that Brown and HMRC have closed all discussions on tax credits, and simply repeat the mantra that they are helping six million families. They fail to add that with up to a third of tax credit claimants being overpaid each year, two million families each year face huge bills, court action, bailiffs and the despair this brings. Freedom of Information requests are rejected, and HMRC cannot or will not specify what proportion of these overpayments it has created itself. Treasury secrecy reinforces the growing belief that, in financial terms alone, recovery is costing the taxpayer considerably more than a write off. Report after report seeking Amnesty and system reforms has been ignored, with critics including:

• The Parliamentary Ombudsman.
• Treasury Select Committee.
• Public Accounts Committee.
• Advice Northern Ireland.
• Citizens Advice.
• Low Incomes Tax Reform Group.
• One Parent Families.
• Child Poverty Action Group.

The Tax Credit Casualties’ own Voices of the Victims has also failed to elicit any response from the Prime Minister, despite former Labour leadership contender Jon Cruddas publicly calling for an Amnesty.

HMRC’s bungling bureaucracy is steadily being exposed through data protection requests, where officials can be heard, on CD, assuring claimants that their awards are correct, admitting that the zeroing of salaries is a common problem, and sharing claimants’ frustration that recovery action is commonly accelerated to cut off legitimate dispute. Claimants can prove they advised HMRC of income changes, that HMRC ‘lost’ their children from claims, and that they sent in renewal packs that HMRC cannot find.

It is evident that data discs, laptops and chairmen are not the only things HMRC loses. It loses all kinds of things, from phone calls and letters to children and NI details, with alarming regularity, complete impunity and – it seems – the blessing of our Prime Minister.

Incompetence and non-accountability are dangerous enough, but added to this, HMRC has the power to:

• Write its own Certificates of Debt to break the innocent in court.
• Deny the right of reply in court on production of this Certificate.
• Open investigations on law-abiding claimants without telling them.
• Act as Judge and Jury in its own cause.
• Use tax recovery laws to withhold evidence harmful to its own caseRecover overpayments without warning, or deduct via taxation.
• Give the ‘independent’ Adjudicator and Ombudsman a biased internal report which the claimant has no right to see or correct in advance of judgement.
• Send tax officials to customers’ doors.
• Send bailiffs to recover people’s possessions.

Not only are claimants not advised that they have the right to dispute recovery of any alleged overpayment, but HMRC information factsheet, DP F/S1 states: “The law also allows us to withhold information, for example, where release would be likely to prejudice… the assessment or collection of any tax or duty” since a tax credits overpayment will be “treated for the purposes of Part 6 of the Taxes Management Act 1970 (c. 9) (collection and recovery) as if it were tax charged in an assessment” (The Tax Credit Act 2002, section 29, subsection (3)).

Only recently have taxpayers won the right to sue HMRC for damages – legal costs permitting. Surely an Orwellian novel in the making?

No wonder, at Tax Credit Casualties, we hear more horror stories every day, including reports that claimants have killed themselves or suffered a heart attack brought on by the stress of being hounded by ruthless tax officials. Unsurprisingly, people are turning away from tax credits and the Labour party in droves.

A full write-off is not only just, but prudent. How much does recovery cost? How much money goes unclaimed? How much is being wasted elsewhere? How much does it cost the country in hidden costs caused by tax credits – sick leave, ill health, and previously self-sufficient people sinking, through stress, into greater dependency on incapacity benefit or being trapped in low-paid work because debt has left them unable to improve their lives and reach their potential? What about the human cost?

Just as tax credits were being launched in Britain, Australia declared an Amnesty on its own overpaid tax credits. HMRC has never refuted claims that recovery costs exceed the amounts reclaimed, and remains silent on the costs of the average dispute, let alone the full dispute process. We now know that recovery is more about control of the citizen and protection of political reputations than about cost-effectiveness, concern for the public purse, or for social justice.

Finally, I will leave you with a few other sums, facts and figures which politicians need to bear in mind when considering whether a write-off should be given:

• The “Money with your name on it” advertising campaign cost £9 million (Source – Dawn Primarolo).
• Paul Gray, the senior civil servant responsible for tax credits, quit HMRC after the two data CDs went missing last November, with a pension pot worth over £2 million (Source – the Sunday Times).
• The total amount given to senior managers at HMRC in bonuses is £23 million. (Source – Treasury Select Committee). Nevertheless, HMRC chief Dave Hartnett says morale is 'not high', and the Tax Credit Casualties continually hear that tax recovery officials hate hurting the poor (Source – Accountancy age and personal communication).
• Only 15% of civil servants believe their senior managers are providing “effective leadership" (Source - the Guardian).
• Value of the tax credits unclaimed last year alone - £4.3 billion (Source – Citizens Advice). Claimants are simply too afraid of mistakes to claim.
• Calls handled by Citizens Advice last year by people confused by the credit and benefit system – 3.5 million (Source – Citizens Advice).
• The costs, according to the Sunday Times, of freeing the poor from an undeserved tax credit debt? £2.8 billion.

http://www.taxcc.org/

It Is So Wrong ....

Reproduced from the TCC Forum, with kind permission of 'romanirai'.


Thank Goodness for Finding TCC !! It has given us some much needed help as really I was at a total loss how to begin tackling an Appeal !!

However we still seem to be no further forward several months on with my husband nearly having a nervous breakdown !!

When we first became aware that we had a problem with our Tax Credits back in June this year, like so many people who have been faced with the prospect of a supposed large overpayment, at first it was total disbelief at how could this have possibly happened. When I had done all the paperwork so carefully and I thought correctly, since 2002 when my husband first applied for Disabled Persons Tax Credits. Then we went into total 'Panic Mode' as the overpayment was in the region of some £8000 !!

As my Husband is disabled, he is only able to work part time self employed, just over the minimum level for Tax Credits and his income is very low. I stopped working at a small part time job to help him and look after my elderly Mother, so we really are on a low income and rely on the Tax Credits.

When I phoned them to ask how this overpayment could have possibly happened and go so far back as 2006, they seemed rather amused that we hadn't realised before, especially as they had stopped paying us a month before I had phoned. Apparently they had taken us off their system completely, so the review we had filled in for payments for this current year wasn't valid at all and we would have to make a completely new application for Tax Credits altogether.

I explained that my husband's work hours etc. had not changed and he was still working just the same and nothing had changed, except that he had been advised to apply for Pension Credit as he was over 60 and on a low income, to make up his income to an Applicable amount.

I had checked that he was allowed to receive Working Tax Credits and Pension Credits at the same time. His Pension Credit took into account the amount of Tax Credits we were supposed to have received !! He fills in a Tax Return each year with his Self Employed earnings anyway. This was sent in each year with the Annual Review up until he received the Pension Credit, the forms then indicated that if he was on Pension Credit he didn't need to send in his Self Employed earnings with it.

Tax Credits were informed when he started to receive Pension Credit. The only explanation they could give me when I phoned to ask what had gone wrong, was that when I had advised them about a year ago that I had given up my small job that I had for 2 hours a week they had accidentally recorded that my husband had stopped his work as well !!

How can this happen when one keeps filling in Annual Reviews and one keeps receiving back Award Notices that one reads and thinks are correct. It is truly hard to believe that there is no process in place to advise people that there is any kind of a problem with their claims until years later. It is truly disgusting !!

I have followed the advice from TCC and requested a SAR pack [and found lots of mistakes in dates of births etc.]. However that was at the beginning of September and I haven't had a disc yet with the recordings of telephone conversations. How long should I have to wait or do I have to request this separately ?

And so it goes on !! Having filled in a totally new claim form for Tax Credits months ago and not hearing a word of acknowledgement from them at all and keep thinking the Appeal might be affecting it. I phoned in desperation several weeks ago to be told the application hadn't even been processed yet, as the dates of birth for my husband on the form didn't match up with their records !!

Their record was wrong again, although I had in the past notified them the correct date !!

Again, no one advises you there is a problem, you are just left to worry !! Several weeks on I still haven't heard anything. Our only income since June is a small amount of Pension Credit, my husband has been so worried by all this he isn't able to work. How long does it take to get a response from the enquiry?

As you suggested I wrote a short letter with the Appeal Form. Should I now go through the whole SAR pack and point out every mistake they have made in the past and send that to them, or wait for a reply from them ?

Any information or advice would be appreciated.

It is so wrong that all this begins to 'take over ones life' !!

www.TaxCC.org

YOU CAN WIN !

by Rachel

I've been fighting HMRC Tax Credits for aprox 2 yrs. Thats 2 yrs of hell, sleepless nights, fighting with my husband, and sliding down the slippery slope of depression.

But all of that was worthwhile as yesterday, the 21st October 2008, I received a call at 13.45pm, from HMRC Tax Credits overpayment investigator and he told me that the error's were made by their own staff, and we are having the overpayment of £6,495 written off, due to the sheer mass of error's made by HMRC.

Basically they were sending letters to our old address about the joint claim, but as we did not respond they discarded the new joint claim, the thing is we were not living at the address they were sending these letters to so could not have reasonably known their was a problem. Also the incompetent HMRC had been phoning my husbands old mobile number, then wondered why he didn't answer it, by golly these HMRC guys are smart (NOT).

The thing is they had our new address, they were sending paperwork and letters to us regarding the overpayment since December 2006, and award notices from June 2006, and they all seemed fine and up to date, yet they still couldn't do their job correctly.

I never thought the day would come that HMRC would do the right thing and free an innocent family of a wrongfully placed debt, I was in so much shock my hubby had to take me down to the local for a relaxing beverage. I mentioned to the investigator (Andy) that I wanted proof of the debt being written off in writing, I will never trust HMRC ever again.

I eagerly await this letter, so I can properly celebrate this achievement, until then I'm trying not to get excited. I'm so tired though, the stress wears you out big time. My advice to you all is never give up, keep pestering them daily, email the HM TREASURY and THE COMMONS. Ring them too - really get under their skin. The quieter you are the less you will achieve in this game, if you're innocent and know it, then fight. I spent hours Monday ringing the HM Treasury, and The Commons and even the Adjudicators, trying to talk to someone with power, but these people just don't want to talk to the little people. But still ring their offices and make yourself heard.

My local MP David Laws is a total god send, he actually cares for us victims, and fights hard to help you get justice. I owe him a bottle of bubbly for his help. I recommend you talk to your MP, they are really good at getting your voice heard, it does take time to get there so be patient. If you're honest, and in the right, keep fighting. Get copies of your files from HMRC's Data Protection Unit, everything you have sent to HMRC will be within these files, claims, letters, phone records.

Everything you need to clear your good names.

Meanwhile folks please add your true life HMRC nightmare stories to this blog, Show the world what these HMRC Tax Credits staff will stoop to.

Help us in this fight, a fight for Amnesty for all of HMRC's genuine overpayments victims.

www.TaxCC.org

If I Can Beat Them - So Can You!

by Debbie Faulkner.

Oh my goodness, where do I start with my story??? At the beginning I suppose would be best but it's a bit of a haul.

In 2001 I returned to work part time, my husband has a rare illness that prevents him from working and as we were struggling financially (he is considered not ill enough for disability payments) I felt it best that I become the breadwinner even though I too have a condition that prevents me from working full time. Everything was fine, filled out the Working Tax Credit papers and started to receive the payments. In 2003 I increased my hours from 16 to 30 a week, I informed the TC's and then DISASTER!. They stopped my benefit because someone at their end put in an incorrect date, and because I wasn't 'entitled' to WTC I was forced to pay full rent and council tax which put a terrible strain on the already stretched finances. Six months later after a lot of arguments with TC staff I finally started to get my payments again including a lump sum which, I was told when I queried it was for 'backpayments', any way, things seemed to be okay for a while and then in March 2005 I received another lump sum, no letter to inform me what it was for so I queried it. I was told that 'it appears you may have been paid twice' and I was also told 'to put the money to one side for a few weeks until we sort it out'. The money was put in my bank and left for some time. I then phoned the TC office as I hadn't heard from them and was told that the payment was actually correct and the guy who had told me otherwise was wrong, just to make sure of that I also spoke to a supervisor who confirmed that the money was right. I spent it paying off outstanding bills that we had been unable to afford to pay when we went without our benefit.

In September 2005 I had a letter arrive from the TC's telling me that I was to repay £4707.73 that had been overpaid by mistake. I phoned the office and was told that there had been two payments made to me and that as I hadn't queried the payment I was to repay within one week I explained that I had indeed queried it but they would not listen to me. I started a dispute stating that I had queried the payment and had been told by a supervisor that the money was correct. I requested a copy of my complete file from them and a few weeks later received reams and reams of meaningless sheets of paper that I then had to spend hours and hours trawling through trying to find the most important sections relating to my case and dispute, some papers which should have been there were not and despite my phoning and requesting them again I have never yet received them, nor have I received the transcriptions of telephone calls to them.

The TC's then sent a letter stating that they were going to start legal proceedings against me for recovery of the money. In December 2005 I received a letter telling me that they had written the overpayment off due to it being 'official error'. I relaxed and thought that was the end of it.

HA! how stupid could I have been??, In January 2006 we received a summons to appear in court. From January 2006 to August of this year we made no fewer than FIVE appearances in front of judges at our local county court, the first time we appeared but the TC rep didn't so we asked for the case to be thrown out, that was refused and no reason was given, the second time we went the TC rep had the certificates showing how much we owed but the judge wanted them to prove it with more paperwork than they had provided. The third time the same thing happened after the TC's had asked for an adjournment to give them more time to find the paperwork requested, the fourth time was another farce as they still didn't have their papers in order, we asked again for the case to be dismissed and I was told by the judge that if I insisted on that then the decision would be made against me. I was unable to show the judge the letter confirming the payments as being written off as it had been mislaid during house improvements (council house I hasten to add).

Sheer desperation pushed me to write to dear Mr Brown the Prime Minister whose lacky wrote back informing me how 'happy' Mr Brown was that I felt I could write to him regarding my problems and that my letter had been sent on to the Treasury for their comments. I contacted the court and asked for an adjournment until I had a response from the Treasury but the adjournment was refused.

So for a fifth and final time we trudged wearily into court and having had a longer hearing this time and the judge admitting that he believed all that we had said he STILL found against us and said that as he was not a tax specialist and that it was not within his 'jurisdiction' to find against the TC's therefore he found against us and ordered that we repay £4807.73, he also stated that as I hadn't 'wasted it on an exotic holiday or new car' I was duty bound to repay. I was so shocked and distressed that I stood up and told him EXACTLY where he and the TC rep could shove the payments!!

The minute I got home from the court hearing I wrote another letter to Mr Brown telling him what had happened and I also managed to get an appointment with my local M.P. Joan Ryan. Ms Ryan wrote to the treasury for me but did say that had I gone to her 'a year or so ago, we might have had more going for us' which didn't sound too inspiring or comforting.

During all these ups and downs I had been in contact with Alison and Paula of the Tax Credit Casualties and they were of enormous comfort and help, they gave me invaluable advice and constant support, in fact I don't think that I would have been able to cope with all of the goings on if it hadn't have been for them, my family as good as they are can only listen to TC troubles for so long before suffering deep depressions!!

Friday of this week will be etched on my memory for eternity as I finally received a letter from none other than Jane Kennedy of the Treasury who informs me that the overpayments have been written off as they were caused by 'system failure' and also because according to the COP26 (which I kept quoting from but they and the judge disregarded it) they failed to meet their responsibilities.

I cannot for one minute understand why, when I first put in a dispute they did not do a complete investigation into the case then rather than take me to court five unnecessary times and put me and my family through sheer hell and constant stress. I really do not know how any of the idiots that make up the TC recovery teams can sleep soundly at night when they know how much suffering they are causing to people like me. I am now going to write to them insisting that the County Court Judgment against me is quashed immediately, a full apology is also going to be demanded as is a consolatory payment that would go some way to easing the stress that we have endured over the past few years all because someone pressed the wrong button at their end!!

It now makes me wonder what other mistakes they may have made over the years, could they have paid me too little or recovered money needlessly without my knowledge?? who knows?? I most certainly don't!!. One thing that I do know is that if my financial status were better and I didn't have to claim Tax Credits then I most certainly wouldn't bother. Unfortunately like millions of others I cannot afford to do without the extra money I get from them.

I hope that this tale of woe and jubilation will give someone else hope that there can be success after all, even if it ages you by a hundred years fighting for it. Don't let the B******S win especially if you KNOW that YOU are right and they are WRONG.

DON'T GIVE UP, KEEP FIGHTING, because if I can beat them then so CAN YOU!

www.TaxCC.org

What Makes HMRC So Special?

by Alison Myers-Ward.

What, I wonder, makes HMRC so special that they can be above and beyond the law, and escape the usual duty of care that other professions adhere to?

HMRC's latest COP26 sets out what 'responsibilities' HMRC has to its 'customers' who are claiming tax credits. It must give correct advice to claimants, and record and use information supplied by claimants accurately. When claimants advise of errors, it must correct them promply. It must also update records and claims within 30 days of the claimant telling the Tax Credit Office of a change or an error.

Why, then, is the voluntary user group I work for, Tax Credit Casualties, seeing so many cases where HMRC has failed to fulfil any of its obligations yet refusing to write off the non-fault overpayments of desperate claimants who have struggled for months if not years to convince HMRC that, as claimants, they have only ever been compliant and honest, and spent the money they were awarded in good faith?

HMRC stacks the decks and holds all the aces. Imagine an organisation so powerful that it can track down anyone it wishes to, and turn up unannounced on their doorstep or ring them at work. It can withhold tax rebates as a means of recovering tax credit overpayments. It can tell claimants they cannot appeal against a recovery decision, without any obligation to let on that the claimant does have a right to challenge this - it is just called a dispute. It can act as judge and jury in its own cause, and rule in its own favour. It operates under strict guidance which actually prevents workers who identify an HMRC error to mention that fact to the claimant unless the claimant has themselves picked it up. It can threaten a claimant with court as the very first sign that anything is wrong, despite its masters in government stating that court is only ever used as a last resort. It can take people to court for the recovery of alleged overpayments without their ever having been offered an explanation of the causes of the overpayment, let alone being able to dispute it. At that hearing it can produce a 'Certificate of Debt' which it writes itself, unchecked. This effectively denies the claimant any right of reply and goes against the Human Rights principle of having a fair trial. Once a CCJ is given - which has happened without a claimant even knowing this has occurred - HMRC can use distraint to seize the claimants' belongings. And all this happens not to the fraudulent or deceitful, not to the rich and tax-evading, but to those ordinary lower income families for whom tax credits were intended - according to government propaganda - to be a helping hand.

Report after report has shown that for most of the time the tax credit 'system' has been in operation only a third of all tax credits have been paid correctly. The 97% success rate which has recently been advertised has been discredited by no less a body than the Low Incomes Tax Reform Group, which has also recently picked up on the Tax Credit Casualties' observations of lack of a fair trial, and of excessive delays from HMRC in responding to queries, disputes and complaints. Let's remember that claimants have reported feeling suicidal, being unable to sleep, suffering an increase in health and psychological problems, and other stress-related problems, and any delays in receiving justice only add to their misery, despair and threats to wellbeing. HMRC is also renowned for operating on two speeds - lightening-pace for recovery and court action, and snails pace for explanations and investigations. We, as claimants, are caught between a rock and a hard place. If the financial costs do not crucify us, the mental anguish undoubtedly will.

This was Gordon Brown's 'Money with your name on it'. It was intended to be a means of lifting lower income families from poverty, and helping middle income families towards a more secure future, in recognition of people's hard work in those jobs which traditionally do not incur huge salaries - often public service industries which serve and protect everybody. To deliver on its promises it needed to be accurately and fairly administered by those up to the task, with full public accountability and robust quality control, dispute and complaints mechanism should anything go wrong. It didn't need to be entrusted to bungling bureaucrats who could lose the data of 25 million families one winter afternoon, and whose track record is so abysmal that one chartered accountant - Ken Frost - has devoted his own blog to it. Full accountability should surely have been a necessity rather than a complete afterthought.

Claimants can win their cases, and provided the victim has not been browbeaten into believing it their fault, and with a little help from the Tax Credit Casualties, welfare organisations, a specialist adviser, a solicitor, MP and/or journalist, and with a bit of dogged determination, they invariably do. Armed with details of their claim - which HMRC must provide if a Subject Access Request Notification is received (a letter requesting all documents and a CD of all recorded phone calls to HMRC advisers) - and the newest COP26, it is completely possible to prove their innocence of any blame and receive - eventually - a write-off. Yet HMRC also have the right - under tax law - to hold back any evidence which gives an advantage to the claimant and results in non-recovery of the overpayment. This is allowed to happen because unrecovered overpayments have the same status as unpaid taxation, and the current law is an ass.

The Tax Credit Casualties commonly see situations where claimants are being threatened with court for recovery of an overpayment which only arose because HMRC failed to act on a specific telephone call. HMRC claims this call was never made. The claimant vividly recalls making just such a call, often with dates, times, an adviser's name, and a witness in the house. Yet if that call is not traced by HMRC, or if HMRC maintains there is no record of it, as far as HMRC is concerned, it never happened.

I am not the Tax Credit Casualties' trained caseworker, nor one of those claimant-sympathetic HMRC workers who tries to help out with advice and pointers, but even so, as a campaigner, I get to hear of a lot of HMRC atrocities. Promises were made by this government that recovery would never be pursued in the case of a person having serious health issues and a very limited ability to improve their low income - but I can think of at least six cases when this just hasn't applied. I know someone who has just had their overpayment written off after five court appearances whilst HMRC tried to get its act together, and failed dismally. They wrote off quietly, without fanfare, apology or compensation. They would. I know of someone who was written to, saying she owed nothing, only to have her case suddenly and dramatically reopened with an HMRC official cold-calling and demanding £2500 back!

How can HMRC treat us like this? It is not as though Brown and his government know nothing about the problems, as we have all been telling them for years. It is through a lack of will and commitment rather than through a lack of knowledge.

HMRC is above the law. What makes HMRC so special? Perhaps Gordon Brown can tell us?

www.TaxCC.org

The True Cost of Tax Credits

by Whitevanwoman.

Another weekend will be wasted…

I’ve got a free weekend coming up. Great. What shall I do? Visit family and friends, shopping, have a day out in the hills or on the beach with the dogs? Nope. I should really sit down and write a number of letters and spend hours going through paperwork in respect of my working tax credit dispute.

I’m one of the lucky one’s in that my claim is currently correct and in payment but that is only as a result of the assistance and intervention of my MP, David Maclean. I’m lucky again in that I have a Conservative MP so he was quite happy to help me fight my battle against tax credits. However, although recovery has been suspended as I have disputed it, there is still an outstanding overpayment of approx £1500 for the year 2005/06. I’ve heard nothing further about this alleged overpayment since my current claim was sorted out in June, but I know that at some point, I will probably be hit with another demand for repayment or I may hear back from TCO informing me that my appeal against it has been refused. And then the battle will start again.

And so I’m in two minds at the moment – do I just do the ostrich thing and ignore it, playing the waiting game, anxiously waiting every day for the postman in case there is one of those dreaded brown envelopes with HMRC stamped on it, or do I do something proactive and risk rattling their cage and doing battle in the run up to Christmas when there’s all the extra stress anyway.

What I need to do in the immediate future is chase up the Data Compliance office for CD recordings of my telephone calls. I wrote to them in the summer requesting my documentation, and whilst I received paper copies of everything within the 40 days, there was a note inside saying that the CDs would follow at a later stage. The 40 days were up on the 1st Sept so it is now approximately 80 days since my request. I know that I need to write to chase these recordings up and I suspect that it may even take several letters and its likely to be months rather than weeks before I get them, if I get them at all. And it is likely that when I do receive them, there will be some conversations missing. And those missing conversations are likely to be the crucial ones which will prove my case. More letters, more cost, more hours wasted, more stress.

I need to write to my MP to thank him for his help and to update him on the situation. That at least will just be a short letter as there isn’t really any news to update him with. But more time, more cost.

But the big task which I’ve been working on for some time and which I really need to finish is the calculation of what the past 3 years of my war with TCO has actually cost me in monetary terms. This means going back through 3 years of phone bills (and then adding on VAT and interest to the call costs, so I need to brush up my accountancy skills; more internet research needed, more hours spent in front of the computer and scratching my head), calculating all my printing and photocopying costs, postage, and then there’s the bank statements and the bank charges incurred as a result of payments being stopped or delayed, the late mortgage payment charges, the credit card late payment penalties, the mileage incurred in having to drive a 26 mile round trip (I live in a rural area) to pay manual payments into my bank account every 4 weeks for 2 years, and then I need to visit my local council tax benefit office (42 mile round trip) to see if they can help me calculate how much council tax I have overpaid as a result of being on manual payments for 2 years and therefore unable to prove I was in receipt of working tax credit.

At a guess, I am probably looking at trying to reclaim about £500 in expenses incurred. According to tax credit publications, I am entitled to be reimbursed for all of the above expenses but I will be gobsmacked if I get any more than about 10% of that.

If I could claim minimum wage for every hour I’d spent trying to sort out my tax credit problems, I wouldn’t need to work or claim tax credits for the next year. But we claimants are expected to have the same knowledge about claims as trained HMRC staff, accountants, tax specialists and legal experts. If I could claim back for my hours at the same hourly rate of HMRC staff, I’d be laughing all the way to the bank, and if I could claim back at the same rate as an accountant, tax specialist or legal expert, I could retire early.

All this because 3 years ago, after having a long period of illness, I decided I wasn’t going to just sit on benefits for years and decided to get back into part time work and try to pick up my career again. This is what the government wanted people with disabilities or long term sick to do. I thought I was doing the right thing. More fool me. The “benefit” of tax credits was supposed to help me support myself whilst I was only able to work part time, to be a stepping stone back into full time employment.

Three years later, my condition (a severe anxiety disorder) has substantially worsened and I am now on additional disability benefits as a result, having been more ill than I have ever been in the past due to the stress of my financial situation caused by the continuing tax credit problems, the non payment & stoppage of my tax credits and the stress of having to try to deal with all the paperwork, research, and battling with the system, to the point where I was nearly hospitalized as a result. It was only down to my pleading with support workers not to be hospitalized to due the chaos it would cause in respect of stopping / starting my tax credit claim and other benefit claims that they agreed I could stay at home and be treated at home. It is now looking unlikely that I will be able to return to full time work for some time, if ever.

My story highlights the human cost of tax credit errors but looking at it from a financial point of view, the errors in my case will end up costing HMRC, my dependence on benefits will continue to cost DWP, and my frequent sickness absence at work is costing my employer (local government).

Oh, I forgot to mention – the reason for my alleged overpayment : right back in the very early days of my claim, I was told I was not entitled to WTC because I was not registered disabled (although this was not a requirement for the disability premium). Strangely my overpayment includes a payment for Child Tax credit – I don’t have any children. Now at least, my claim in theory should go through automatically, as my condition has worsened so much that being on the highest care rate of Disability Living Allowance qualifies me for the disability premium. That’s the true cost of Tax Credits.

www.TaxCC.org

Distraint? HMRC Don't Do That !!

by Peni.

My neighbour told my husband today that she saw the woman from the Inland Revenue call at my house yesterday (they had not contacted us previously to try to make an appointment with us). She was conspicuous because of her very smart car and very smart clothes - no-one in this neighbourhood can afford those! (I wonder if she will dress down and park around the corner if she comes back tomorrow.)

When she got no answer at the door she was seen to try to look through the windows and then to write down the car registration details for the cars parked outside (belonging to my son and husband). One of which is a "pensioner" and not MOT'd at the moment, and our "newest" car is about 11 years old, has done over 200,000 miles, and is the only vehicle that we can all fit in as a family, but neither are worth much. If she is planning on selling them to try to clear our alleged debt she's not going to chip much of the alleged overpayment (over £9000), it will just make our lives even harder! (We just heard today that the insurance company are writing off my car - the one that was not at home when she called.)

Is this kind of behaviour normal for HMRC?

I had to go to out today and I was really frightened going out, and coming back home again, in case she was there waiting for me. Every time the phone rings I start shaking again - I'm frightened to answer it but if I don't I may miss some work. I'm really frightened about what will happen tomorrow - she said that she was coming back tomorrow.

I have written again to HMRC and my MP again, and as always sent the letters recorded delivery (I don't trust them at all - they claimed that our first complaint was not received). In my latest letter I requested again a complete copy of all of the personal details which they hold about us - I wonder if the car details will be included! I have also asked for a copy of the recording of the telephone conversation of yesterday, although I doubt that will turn up as it does not show HMRC in a flattering light! I've also followed the guidance from the tcc website for the format of the complaint letter. It goes on a bit, but I really wanted to let them know how we feel and the effect that their maladministration, negligence and illegal activity has had on us.

I can be brave in a letter, especially as it is from both of us.

(Then, e-mailed later .... )
This evening I have just frightened myself even more by searching the internet to find out what was going on yesterday. From my investigations I think that the woman from the IR may have been from the IR Debt Management Office in Peterborough. On further investigation I found some of their internal meeting minutes (available online) and it appears that office is responsible for home and business visits to do "DISTRAINT".

I have learnt this evening that they have the right to enter my home and take my belongings, even though I was never overpaid tax credits and they won't send me the relevant information so that I can prove it!

Apparently according to their staff manual (also available on line) they don't even have to tell me that they are going to do this!!! They can turn up Mon-Fri 8am-8pm and take my belongings. I can't believe that this is really happening to me and my family - what have we ever done to deserve this, except claim what we are supposed to be entitled to. We are being victimised because of their mistakes!

I can see that I'm in for yet another sleepless night tonight - and probably every night until this is sorted out.

I'm really scared now.

(Then, e-mailed later still ..... )
I've just received a reassuring email from a contact at LITRG about the recent developments in my case, it may also be of use to others who are facing a similar situation. He says:

Under Human Rights legislation you have no obligation whatever to let any Revenue officer into your house. Moreover, yet again, they are acting in contravention of their own policy. We have just had a note sent around the tax credits consultative committee which contains the following passage:

'Enforcement methods:
The main methods of enforcement used are:
• summary proceedings in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland
• county court proceedings in England and Wales and
• ordinary cause in Scotland.
• Distraint (England and Wales, and Northern Ireland)

Although distraint is provided for in the regulations, we are currently not using this power with our tax credit customers. It is also important to remember that, even if we are taking a customer to court, we will not normally seek a judgement if they make a realistic offer for repayment ahead of any actual hearing.’

SO they should not be using distraint in your case at all, and certainly not while you are still communicating with them from your end.

www.TaxCC.org

Are They Allowed To Terrorise Us?

by Peni.

We've had a difficult few weeks as my daughter has been quite ill (including a visit to GOSH); somebody ran into my car and the insurance company want to write it off - if they do I will be unable to work as I won't get enough back to replace it; we have also been trying to sort out a solution to our mounting debt problems, with our bank, etc.

However yesterday when I got home there was a strangely menacing answerphone message saying that I should call a number about an urgent personal/business matter. The message was only addressed at me (not my husband) no contact name or company name was included in the message. The number that was given (xxxxx xxxxxx) does not exist - I tried calling it. I have kept a recording of this message.

My answering service also retained the last number to call my home phone - a mobile number (xxxxx xxxxxx) and the timing of the message and the last number to call were the same (12:33pm). When I called the mobile number and asked who it was, she was reluctant to tell me until I said that her phone had called mine today. She eventually told me that she was from Inland Revenue, but would not give her name. The woman said that she was just around the corner and wanted to visit me at home now. I said that was not convenient and I asked her what it was about. She said that it was to do with the Tax Credit Overpayment and asked if she could come on Thursday, I said no. I told her that she had left the wrong number on my answer machine but she said that I was mistaken. (Both my husband and I listened to the message several times and we are right - she is wrong.) I also told her that I would not let her into my home, when she asked why, I said that I felt vulnerable and didn't want her in my home. I also said that I would not be prepared to meet with her until I had been given a copy of all of the personal data that they hold about me, including the telephone conversation that states we owe nothing, so that I can prove that I do not owe the money. (I've been repeatedly requesting this since 2005. So far we have lots of printed stuff, but only 1 telephone recording - notably NOT the one where we are told we owe nothing and it's all a mistake!!)

I was very calm and polite on the phone but I was really frightened and shaking afterwards. I've told my children not to answer the door - ever.

I've just seen a document online that says that they don't visit you unless they have repeatedly tried to contact you by phone and letter - which they have not. The last letter I had from them was 18 September 2008, telling me that they had refunded the overpaid tax to me (finally - 1 year overdue!!). Yesterday was the only time to my knowledge that they have tried to contact me since then - they have certainly left no other phone messages for me.

I don't feel safe. I feel that I'm being watched. I'm frightened to stay in and I'm frightened to go out. I can't stop shaking and feel very tearful.

Are they allowed to terrorise innocent people in their own homes like this?

I've written again to HMRC and my MP, Dr. Richard Taylor - useless as he has proved to be so far!!

www.TaxCC.org

Tax Credits Wonder Blunders

by Rachel.

Tax credits, do you break out in cold sweats at hearing that name? I do; tax credits was supposedly created to help the poorer families live better lives, but the simple truth is tax credits was a bribe from the labour party, a ploy to lure us into voting them into power. Tax credits was the biggest piece of cheese on a human mousetrap: Lure you in with the tasty treat, then whack they've got you.

I was, like most people, happy to apply for tax credits, I thought it would solve all our financial woes. It did help for a while, until tax credits made a jumbo sized mistake that’s costing us in the region of £7,300.00

Fighting tax credits is a stressful, hard experience. My local MP, David Laws, is helping us battle this tax credits injustice, but even his power is limited. HMRC tax credits will lie to you, withhold evidence from you and threaten you.

For instance in my case tax credits have denied knowledge of a joint claim my partner and I made in 2006. They say we did not claim jointly between April and December 2006, but I have evidence in my files which I received from the tax credits data protection unit, evidence suffice to say clearly shows we jointly claimed in May 2006.

Tax credits staff withheld this fact in all correspondences to my MP and basically we have caught tax credits out with a clear bare faced lie. HMRC simply are corrupt, money grubbing, criminals. They don't care for truth or feel sorry for their victims.

Gordon Brown supposedly created tax credits to help people, more like a temporary loan until he got his arse comfy on his ministerial throne! He may be the PM but that should stand for Prime Muppet because, folks, he's led us all a merry little dance and he's laughing and joking at our painful expense. After all he's got his nicely decorated second home and his Mercedes Benz brand new off the forecourt; we’ve got money owed to HMRC.

He gets his £100,000.00 a year wage and his perks and all the while he's laughing at us hard working class folk and ripping the arse out of us through taxes and tax credits claw backs, My advice is this: don't claim tax credits, it's not worth the stress you will no doubt get when the incompetent staff cock it up,

And if you are a victim, make your voice heard. We at Tax Credit Casualties will listen and have empathy for your woes; we are fighting for justice for all tax credits victims.

So say it out loud "NO MORE!" Say it with all your gusto. Help us fight by making your story heard. We do listen and we do care. Help us in our fight; a fight that when we win will benefit us all.

www.TaxCC.org