I've got a client with an Income Support overpayment.

DWP recieved GMS information that he had over £11,000 in two accounts - one ISA and one TESSA. Date of match is 2004.

Cl has had several strokes, and recall very, very poor. Remembers having ISA/TESSA, but cannot remember who with or amounts. Thinks that accounts were held sometime ago, and that both accounts held at different times ie money from TESSA paid into ISA.

Has found one account book, for an account that matured in 2002. The amount in the account in 2001 tallies exactly with the figure for one of the accounts on the GMS.

Several questions:

Does the GMS provide information about what accounts cl has at that time, or could the information in 2004 be referring to the 2001 account.

Someone, somewhere obviously has information about these accounts - who and which department could we contact to get details of where they were held?? Short of writing to every bank and building society we can think of!!

Any general information about how GMS works would also be gratefully recieved

Thanks

Hi, DWP's GMS system is very similiar to our (LA) HBMS system - the match for these Inland Revenue cases states:-

"This rule is designed to identify HB.CTB customers/partners who have failed to declare they have capital of £xxxx and above.

Customer and partner recorfds are matched against HMRC records.
The total Gross interest paid indicates that an amount exceeding £xxx was held during the relevant financial year. This rule should therefore be taken as an indicator that savings were held for that tax year."

Basically what this means is that you get a referral for a specific account showing how much interest had been accrued for that year - there is then a simple calculation which shows roughly how much capital must have been in that account for that much intrest to be accrued. At the moment, referrals produced now are showing info for tax years 05/06.
The DWP may, once they have this info, ask for further details about that specific account from the bank involved, particularly if that account had never been declared.
In your example, yes, the Match in 2004 will be talking about the 2001 account - and the referral will show the sort code and account number of the bank - it will also have the banks identification code which shows which bank and which branch.
I would have thought the DWP would give you the bank details, after all, it is his account !

Hope this helps

Thanks for that - looks like I've managed to track it down the ISA and I've confirmed that the Tessa is the same one.