Tax credit overpayment overseas

[stcatherine]

I hope someone can help advice me here,

In short -

I would like to know if there is any way the English TCO can place an attachment of earnings or other such methods of reclaiming a so called overpayment of tax credits on my Myself or my husband if we now live,work and pay taxes in the republic of Ireland.
The main reason I am worried is that we have our property on the market in the UK and I am terrified they will try to get the money when it sells.

Long form -

basically I am yet another one of those people who have been overpaid tax credits.
I appealed in 2004 but heard nothing more, instead they continued to pay me the same amount for the next 2 years and then decided to tell me again that I had been overpaid and stopped all our credits. At that time we were having difficulties at home so we just resolved ourselves to not receiving the credits for the next 18 years as a way for them to take the money back., and we continued to fill out the yearly form etc as requested. They have never actually asked for us to pay back any money.

However this year my husband was employed by the irish government which meant we moved to Ireland (I am an irish citizen anyway), before we left we phoned the TCO to inform them and to give them our new address we also completed our yearly income forms as requested and returned them.

Suddenly they are writing to me at our address in Ireland and my husband at our address in the UK saying we have not filled out this years forms (yes we did), then we get requests for payment immediately for approx 7K again to both addresses. I write to them from my address in Ireland by recorded delivery asking them to explain how the over payment came about when we have always provided them with the correct information ...to this date no reply !

Next we get letters saying because we have not filled out our yearly form they are stopping our credits ( well I should think so considering we no longer live, work or pay taxes in the UK).
Finally I phoned them (at a cost of £20 from Ireland) and find out they have received our yearly forms but only from my husband and as we are seperated I need to do mine also.
We are not separated we just moved to another country. The man on the phone admits this was an error on their part !

Today yet again we receive requests saying if the 7K is not paid by 3rd october they were begin proceedings against us. (yet again sent to two different addresses)

Obviously we are yet again beginning an appeals process to stop this ludicrous attempt at bullying us into paying back money we had no idea was overpaid.

[Amethyst]

Re: Tax credit overpayment overseas

Hey catherine,

Sounds completely nuts to me...I'm going to see if I can get an expert in this situation to pop over and help you out.

For the moment have a look at this site http://www.taxcreditoverpayment.pwp....urt_Cases.html
hopefully some of the info on there will help you.

Ame

xx

[stcatherine]

Re: Tax credit overpayment overseas

Thank you, the link is very helpful. It is so difficult for us because we cannot afford the long waits on telephones being as we are in Ireland, we are having to deal with these idiots by letter and they dont seem to be able to read !:argh:

Hubby and I have just had the worst two years of our lives and this job and move to Ireland has been the light at the end of the tunnel, I am terrified that these idiots at the TCO are going to rip it all our from under our feet by getting in touch with my husbands employers or something, and he works for the government here so it could mean he will lose his job if they think he how owes 7K in taxes in the UK.

It makes me so angry because we have never hidden from them, we told them we were leaving the country and gave them our address in Ireland and they couldn't even get that right.