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Tax Credit case summary 2
Mr B and his partner made a joint claim for Tax Credits in May 2003, his partner having previously claimed as a single parent. Despite numerous calls from Mr B to the Tax Credit Helpline, their claim was not put into payment until late July 2003.
In November 2003, Mr B's partner had a baby. When Mr B telephoned the Helpline to report this, he was told that the couple's tax credit payments would increase. Due to a technical problem, however, the system did not recognise either of the children and payments stopped altogether. This was not resolved until the end of December 2003 but, unfortunately, there were further mistakes with the new award, which led to an overpayment. In addition, the award was backdated to May, which meant that payments that had already been made were duplicated.
Mr B realised that he had been overpaid and rang the Helpline on four occasions to find out the extent of the overpayment and how it could be repaid. During the first three calls, he was told that it was not possible to say how much the overpayment was and it was possible he would not find out until the end of the tax year.
On the fourth call, the Advisor was sympathetic to Mr B's situation and she calculated the overpayment to be around £1,900. Unfortunately, she only took the duplicated payments into account, not realising there were incorrect elements included in the award. Mr B subsequently complained to the Adjudicator about the way in which his case was handled.
We upheld this complaint
HMRC acknowledged that their mistakes and delays had caused Mr B considerable worry and distress. By the time we started our consideration of this complaint, they had already paid him £225 in recognition of this and an additional £10 to cover his costs.
We felt that HMRC should consider giving up some of the overpayment because there were mistakes in the December award that Mr B could not have reasonably been expected to notice. We also felt that it was reasonable for Mr B to believe that the specific figure quoted to him by the Helpline amounted to the actual overpayment figure.
HMRC reconsidered their original decision and agreed to give up a substantial part of the overpayment. They also offered to make additional compensation payments of £150 for worry and distress, and £100 for their poor complaint handling. Mr B was happy to settle his complaint on this basis.
