Where tax credit payment is currently less than award because claimant's yearly entitlement has been reconsidered and lowered and therefore they have already received majority/all of their Tax Credit yearly entitlement (recovery of in year overpayment)- what will be in payment from April?? Presumably payments will increase to level based on latest info IR has on claimant??

Am I right ?

Just been reading hbinfo and found the answer:

'They confirmed that from April any CTC or WTC award to which an in-year overpayment recovery has been applied, will revert back to the last notified award.

This will result in increases of instalments - where recovery is being made - and re-instatement of awards where instalments stopped entirely because of the overpayment. (I assume, of course that the CTC or WTC will only be re-instated where there is a continuing entitlement to it).

I was also informed that any provisional payments made form April will have the annual up-rating applied to them - so it is impossible to know what the likley award of TC is going to be in ANY case after April.'

1. Can someone tell me where I can see the "hbinfo" that JService mentions please?
2. If IR do revert to paying the last notified award (i.e. the one before the one where they applied the "in year overpayment recovery") then in many cases they will go back to paying too much because that award was itself too high and thus the cause of the overpayment. If they do this, they will simply cause another overpayment problem.
3. I am attending an IR seminar at the month-end which (hopefully!) will clarify this.

In-year recovery will have been made because the annual award for 2003/4 was reduced during that year (for whatever reason, change in circumstances or IR error). To make sure that a 'real' overpayment does not occur after April 2004, the weekly payments were reduced to ensure that the total paid during 2003/4 was correct.

After April, the weekly repayments will reflect the revised annual award for 2003/4, but as it will be spread over 52 weeks, it will be higher than the weekly payments being made before April.

The Inland Revenue have said (at one of their seminars) that no notification will be sent in April showing these changes. When asked, they said it is the claimants responsibility to provide proof of their income to Housing Benefit, they will have to take bank statements or wage slips.

Then, when the final award is made, it may all change again.

Hope that helps a bit.

The seminar was very enlightening!

Vicky