I know the ups and downs of what I'm about to ask but I have to ask it. Having spoken to many a person about this, I am still at a loss as to what to do. I have someone who is now having his Child Tax Credit reduced due to an overpayment of WTC of £2786 for last year. If this were a matter of overpaid IS, for example, it may well fall to be a Hinchy lookalike kinda case; but that's bye the bye as the issue in this context is right of appeal and not neccessarily merit. Simple question really, did anyone try the Article 6(1) HRA way forward yet? and if they did, what happened please?

We've talked about this before Paddy and I've always thought that there was no chance of the argument succeeding but I'm starting to think again.

Basically, my thoughts had previously been that, as there is no concept of recoverability in TC law ie all overpayments are recoverable, there is no decision to hang a right of appeal on. However, I have been wondering if we could make an analogy with the debt situation common law eg your bank deposits alump of money in your account by mistake. The common law approach is that they can get it back if you couldn't have known it was wrong and you've spent it in good faith.

Such an approach does look suspiciously like the code of practise used by the IR to decide whether to recover overpayments. I'm now therefore wondering whether we could argue that there is an implied decision on recoverability (as opposed to one set out in a statutory code) which, using HRA arguments, we could actually hang a right of appeal on.

Is this nonsense or does anyone think it has legs? And paddy, if this is what you were arguing along, sorry for being a bit thick and not understanding.

you've got me thinking here - and breaking the problem down a bit, it occurs to me first of all that the IR policy of recovery of official error overpayments might stand a good chance of successful JR, which could be a useful building block..

The arguments would bring in the history of the change from benefits to tax credits (benefit by another name) and the reasons there were recovery rules with benefits - and the loss of that protection in the switch to TC.
The recoverability rules in SS benefit imply the acceptance of a principle - it is unfair to financially penalize people on benefit level incomes for official errors. That principle has not been transferred to the TC system, with corresponing protection, yet the tax system did not previously have the responsibilities it now has for payments to groups who are financially dependent on it.


It could also be argued that the IR's automatic right to recover, regardless of penalizing applicants for their own mistakes, places no pressure on IR to get it right in the first place, a massive inequality.

this all seems like a major omission. i don't suppose an omission can be ultra vires, can it? : )

did this lot go to the social security committe? i don't suppose...? nah!

sorry andy, i don't really know. the only thing that seems clear is the lack of appeal rights comparable to SS law is an affront to the concept of fairness, and something needs to be done about it.

jj

Re: SSAC- have a gander at news item 15/6/04-report from the government that it "is of the view that it would not be appropriate to extend SSAC's statutory remit to cover tax credits"

Instead there looks to be a cosy "Memorandum of Understanding" which will provide "in confidence" for provision of advice from SSAC to Treasury Ministers. A couple of brandies and can I snip that havanna for you Humphrey?. And to think I used to laugh at "Yes Minister"

yes ... 'memorandum of understanding' published in july ....

Social Security Advisory Committee to be consulted on new tax credit legislation

thanks for this. what a stitch up!
what do we have here?

no right of appeal for the applicant, and no responsibility on the inland revenue to exercise even due care and diligence in the awarding of tax credit? so much for rights and responsibilities.

who exactly was consulted on the tax credit proposals besides, let me guess, the CBI, which must be ecstatic.

The DWP is close to criminalising working age claimants, whilst businesses which, for some reason, expect people to work for them without any need to pay them a living wage, profit privately from publicly subsidised cheap labour.

when _did_ the social security system become a system of social control?

jj

'when _did_ the social security system become a system of social control?'

Erm, when it was invented?

well! i suppose you're going to be just as cynical about the compulsory ID card scheme...

jj

Oh no, I believe thats an honest and proportionate attempt by our brave politicians to protect us from the dangers of terrorism...or something.

I think we're all going slightly off subject here. Back to work everybody!

I refuse to go back to work until they give us WFTC back.

Come on guys lets aim high. Please may I introduce the Campaign for Reintroduction of FIS! Its gotta be a winner.

PS. I'm too young to remember FIS, was it really worth more than its successors?

Actually no it wasn't, I can just about remember visiting some people years ago when I worked for Social Security who had been getting FIS.

The main point is that hardly anyone got it and given that there was no minimum wage either plenty of working people got very little indeed. Millions are now getting Tax Credits who would never have previously got anything.

I agree there is plenty wrong with the system but for crying out loud let's try to keep a bit of a sense of proportion here.

Would it to rude to suggest that one or two of the more recent messages weren't entirely serious?

Yeah Andy down here at the coalface we've got to find our miserable pleasures where we can eh?

But, as ever, many a true word spoken in jest. Tax Credits may well have brought some financial security to large numbers of potential Labour voters who have stable jobs and whose claims are easily admininstered (and I write as someone who rejoiced at the 97 election result) and if so then jolly good luck to them.

But, there is a significant minority of claimants whose financial lives have been put into virtually continual insecurity since April 2003. They are often claimants with disabilities themselves (or, worse, with claims for DLA not yet adjudicated), with disabled children, regular changes in child main carer, or other such eligibility complications, who being vulnerable in the first place often have very poorly paid short lived jobs. They are so ill served by the information provided for them by the Inland Revenue and the quality of the services they try to engage with that they in some cases have never received any satisfactory decision. The constant turmoil of over and underpayment, recovery and lump sums paid in error, is completely overwhelming.

I want WFTC back very much. It offered such people six months of money at a set rate that they could rely on and live by.

I know I won't get it back. But whilst the people I see are very vulnerable people - downtrodden by society enough - being mistreated by an unfair poorly administered system, then that's where my sense of proportion will swing from.