Hello Everyone,

I've discovered something quite worrying this week and was wondering if it is a wide spread problem?

I have had four cases this week where a disabled working person has received their annual renewal form and has noticed that they are recorded as being in receipt of HRC DLA (and therefore qualifies for the severe disability element of TCs), despite having never received HRC, informed of no changes of cirs in year, and having never ticked the yes box to this question on the form.

The obvious outcome of this is being overpaid tax credits, which as we are all aware, will be automatically recovered unless otherwise stated. Fortunately one of these clients has a copy of their original claim form, but the other three have not.

Obviously I will be arguing for non recovery, but I wondered if this is a wide spread problem? And are we heading for another computer glitch disaster area?

Certainly something to look for, and, as always, will effect those at the greatest disadvantage physically and financially.

Yes i have had a case of this, the TC state that the award will be reduced to claim back the overpayment, this has been challanged and not yet had an outcome.

A case of this earlier this week presented itself at Bolton CAB. Client had been receiving a SDE in his TC although he had never claimed he was in receipt of HR Care of
DLA, was told by the compliance team that it is a problem which is
affecting a large number of claimants.

We too are challenging the decision and have advised the client to
highlight his case to his MP

We have seen a twist to this problem. Client entitled to disability element but not severe disability are receiving award notices which correctly state "you qualify for a disability element of WTC" but then continues "you receive higest care component of DLA or AA higher amount". It seems there is a software glitch.

Astute advisers are therefore double checking to ensure SDE is not included in the award. The awards do not include SDE.

Of course if the award notices actually gave the figures for each element (like means tested benefit decision notices) we could do a quick check and not waste hours trying to clarify with IR. They may have changed the layout of the notices but they are just as useless as ever!

Yes, I was informed of the glitch, but was not helpfully informed that the SDE was not included, so many thanks for that. I think I will still put the appeals/non-recovery forms in anyway just incase of possible future come back.

I have seen the new decisions, different in format (slightly) but no better in content! I wish they would just show the calculations, or at least which premiums are there then people and advisors would have some means by which to check.