Tax credits news
New policy on offsetting overpayments
As mentioned in the December 2009 e-bulletin, the Revenue’s new policy on offsetting overpayments came into effect from 18 January 2010. Where claimants report changes concerning single or couple status late, the overpayment on their previous tax credit award will be reduced by the amount they would have been entitled to if they had reported the change promptly. At the time of writing there is no further guidance available, but claimants can now phone the Tax Credits Helpline to ask for overpayments to be reduced in this way. We understand that this can apply to old overpayments that are still being paid back, regardless of when the change occurred, but there will be no refunds for amounts that have already been repaid.
In and Out of Work Projects
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has confirmed that the ‘In and Out of Work Project’ is now running in all local authority areas in Scotland (with the exception of Shetland due to technical difficulties, but these should be resolved by the end of February). The ‘In and Out of Work Project’ allows joint working between the Revenue, the DWP and local authority benefit sections. The Project is currently only available to people who have been claiming jobseeker’s allowance or income support as a lone parent, and are starting work, or people who are stopping work and claiming benefits. It is not currently available to people on income support on other grounds, incapacity benefit or employment and support allowance, although further pilots are planned. Advantages of the ‘In and Out of Work’ project include:
- Claimants contact the Jobcentre Plus office to make their claim and report changes for income support/JSA, child tax credit/working tax credit, housing benefit/council tax benefit, and don’t have to provide the same information to three different government agencies.
- Information can be sent electronically between the relevant departments and payments can be made quickly.
- There is a facility to make a telephone claim for tax credits by telephoning the local Jobcentre Plus office, who can take the details and send an electronic version of the claim form to the Revenue.
This support is only provided during the transitional period of starting or stopping work, so later changes in circumstances such as a reduction in hours must be reported to the Revenue directly. Note also that the legal definition of an appropriate office for claiming or notifying changes for tax credits does not include the DWP unless this has been notified in writing by the Revenue. Therefore, although under this project the DWP commits itself to passing on information, any delay due to a failure in communication may not be treated as received until it actually reaches the Revenue.
Website for calculating number of days
At last, an end to the misery of spending hours poring over diaries and calendars to work out the number of days in a relevant period to calculate exact tax credit awards. There is a website that will do this for you: www.timeanddate.com/date/duration.html
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Michaela Greene
