Apologies for anything that was unclear, it is an unusual scenario. I hope this clarifies things. Firstly the heading was too long
TC overpayment for tax years 2004-5, 2005-6 and 2006-7 where actual income was less than that mentioned on the final award notice/annual declarations.
Yes notifications were issued on time, there is no dispute regarding this and yes potentially there is an underpayment rather than an overpayment. Customer's partner's income was actually about £8,800 whereas they confirmed that it was £16,000. The overpayment occurred as income appeared to have increased.
We have gone through the dispute procedure and complained. Tax Credit Office advised that they can only reconsider things if they are provided with new and relevant information. We have provided details of partner's tax calculations as provided to him by HMRC and asked them to accept that this is new information as it is highly pertinent. They have refused. We are the stage of complaining to the adjudicator.
In their most recent reply they state; "You are asking us to revise the decision under Section 20 (4) of the tax credit act 2002, unfortunately you will have to appeal against the income we have used to calculate the award rather than disputing against the overpayment
If you are not happy with our response, you can ask the Adjudicator to look into your complaint. The adjudicator acts as a fair and unbiased referee whose recommendations are independent."
I accept what is said about decisions being set in stone. We are looking at section 20 on the basis of customer's neglect i.e. in not actually correcting the errors in the notifications when they were issued. This would be the basis of our complaint to the adjudicator. We have argued that, had HMRC discovered that income was actually higher, they would, as you say, have reconsidered these awards on discovery. They seem to refuse to do so when it is apparent that the income was lower.
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