Lots of news about the new capability of TCO to suspend recovery of overpayment where there is a dispute, but from reading the actual words of the annonuncement it seems that they will suspend the recovery until they make a decision and they aim to make the decision in 4 weeks. From my experience correct decisions to remit the overpayment are rarely made at stage one of the dispute, so recovery will start again after 4 weeks. The announcement does not say that recovery will be suspended, no matter how long the dispute takes (ie all the way to adjudicator and Ombudsman, which from experience takes in excess of a year). So how exactly does this new facility help our clients?? Or am I being pessimistic and will TCO actually suspend recovery for the duration of the dispute?? Anyone got any inside info??

I'm attending the Tax Credits Consultation Group meeting on behalf of NAWRA next week and I've asked them to clarify matters then. If they give me a definitive answer I'll ask them if its ok to post on Rightsnet, however they may insist that I wait until the minutes have been cleared.

Bad news I'm afraid. HMRC are only committing to suspend recovery until the initial decision is made. If that is a refusal then recovery will start even if you are launching a further challenge via the complaints procedure or to Independent Adjudicator etc. However, they say that they will suspend further if new information is provided in the further complaint (presumably to assist those who made their initial request without a rep etc).

Another point, they advised that if it is an appeal (as opposed to a request not to recover under their code of practice)we should explicitly state that we want recovery suspended. Not quite sure of the rationale with this though...

Thanks a million for the speedy response. Had a feeling they would do it that way!

Re Andy's earlier post, whats all this nonsense about HMRC getting wobbly if NAWRA discussions are publicised before the minutes are produced (which seems to take months)?

We're not talking about the codes to launch nuclear missiles!

Steve

Simply because HMRC are sensitive about the correct versions of discussions or minutes finding their way into the (semi) public domain. Its not just about HMRC's sensitivities either. What happens after each consultation group meeting is that a draft version of minutes is sent out to attendees who have an opportunity to say if there are any inaccuracies. This could be important, its not just the HMRC who may have been misquoted. Any responses are collated and the final version is sent out, which is the one we are allowed to send to members.

To give you an example of attitudes, it is posted elsewhere that the minutes are now up on the HMRC website, bizarrely this was news to the HMRC reps at the last meeting. Also, one of the vol sector attendees expressed some concern that nobody had been told of this as s/he was a little concerned that attendees details were in the minutes and they did not know they would be published in this way. So its not just HMRC who are a little guarded, one or two of those from our side are too. OK, it wouldn't have worried me but different strokes etc.

So no, we're not talking codes to nuclear missiles but neither are we talking about the minutes to the AGM of the local jam making society. The meetings do involve discussions about national policy and as such can be sensitive. If we don't go by the rules we could be kicked off the group which gets us nowhere.