Child Benefit Overpayment

[Jo Anna]

Hi please can anyone offer any advice. Yesterday my husband received a letter from the tax office stating that we owed just under 3 thousand pound in child benefit as we had been over payed since 2014 ! My husband had done overtime which bumped his annual earnings to just over 50 thousand pounds . We didn't k ow anything about self assessment and assumed (wrongly) that because we both pay tax they would know what our earning are. We tried to explain if they knew how much our salaries are why have they continued to over pay the benefit for 3 years. They said it's up to us to inform them but they clearly have all the figures. Is there anything we can do ? How can we pay it we don't have the money . It seems unfair. Any advice greatly received.

[des8]

Re: Child Benefit Overpayment

Hi and welcome.
Assuming you don't dispute the overpayment, haven't HMRC told you how the repayment should take place.
See here; https://www.gov.uk/tax-credits-overp...ur-tax-credits

[Jo Anna]

Re: Child Benefit Overpayment

Hi and welcome.
Assuming you don't dispute the overpayment, haven't HMRC told you how the repayment should take place.
See here; https://www.gov.uk/tax-credits-overp...ur-tax-credits

It's not tax credit it's the old family allowance . They want it in a lump sum!

[des8]

Re: Child Benefit Overpayment

Oops sorry!
try this link: http://revenuebenefits.org.uk/child-.../overpayments/

[Jo Anna]

Re: Child Benefit Overpayment

Oops sorry!
try this link: http://revenuebenefits.org.uk/child-.../overpayments/

Thanks
I can't believe they have let us accumulate this debt when we both pay tax and they have all our information. Could we appeal it ? I'm out of my depth here don't know what to do. What grounds for appeal have I got? Probably none they are saying we didn't fill a self assessment form we knew nothing about it. Funny how they can work out we have been overpaid but not stop the over payment happening when they had access to the information all the time.

[des8]

Re: Child Benefit Overpayment

you can only appeal following a mandatory reconsideration.

You really need to check their figures first.
If you think they are incorrect you can request a mandatory reconsideration, and explain where you think their error lies.
If that goes against you, you can then appeal.

A good site for this sort of thing: https://www.turn2us.org.uk/Benefit-g...are-my-options

[JSH]

Re: Child Benefit Overpayment

Thanks
I can't believe they have let us accumulate this debt when we both pay tax and they have all our information. Could we appeal it ? I'm out of my depth here don't know what to do. What grounds for appeal have I got? Probably none they are saying we didn't fill a self assessment form we knew nothing about it. Funny how they can work out we have been overpaid but not stop the over payment happening when they had access to the information all the time.

Hi Jo Anna,

How did you get on in the end? I’ve just received a similar letter ☹️ Have no idea how we will pay it back so any advice would appreciate. Many thanks

[Amethyst]

Re: Child Benefit Overpayment

Child Benefit would be reduced as you earn over £50,099 and removed completely at £60k I believe. I looked online but couldn't figure out if there is still a joint earnings max earnings of £90k or not ( I'm sure that was what was reported in the press when it was introduced, but can only now find reference to the £50k individual earnings )

How many children / ages etc ? There is a calculator on the gov.uk website to work out reductions due to earnings etc ( again doesn't mention the £90k so I feel I might have imagined it)

[Popsicle18]

Re: Child Benefit Overpayment

It's not tax credit it's the old family allowance . They want it in a lump sum!

Hi [MENTION=108087]Jo Anna[/MENTION];

How did you get on with this? Did they let you pay monthly? We’ve had similar letter asking for £3K plus interest and penalties! We just don’t have this sort of money lying round to pay in lump sum.

[Amethyst]

Re: Child Benefit Overpayment

Are you self assessment or PAYE [MENTION=64889]Popsicle[/MENTION]?

Is this for more than one year's payments ? ( due to pay by 31st Jan ?) and is this the first notification you have had of this?

Have you spoken with HMRC to see if the repayment can be taken from your tax code ?

Contact HMRC about repayments or if you need time to pay.

HMRC 03000 550 718
Monday to Thursday, 8:30 to 5pm
Friday, 8:30 to 4:30pm
Find out about call charges


To stop future child benefit https://www.gov.uk/child-benefit-tax...-child-benefit

[Popsicle18]

Re: Child Benefit Overpayment

We received the letter in December and have just now received the letter about penalties. I'm worrying that if its taken out using tax code they will take a hefty amount out each month leaving us in hardship

[Amethyst]

Re: Child Benefit Overpayment

You need to contact them and discuss it with them, I'm not sure how negotiable it is - guessing they take it over one tax year - so around £250 a month - so you'd have to discuss your circumstances with them to get that over a longer period - may not have to be through your tax code but a monthly standing order or some such like you can do with tax credit overpayments. I know with my tax credit overpayment I pay X monthly by SO and they went through my full income and expenditure to work out how much I could pay. You really don't know until you talk to them then you have a starting point at least to make any complaint/further negotiate.

Do you agree with the overpayment ? Some guidance here if not https://www.turn2us.org.uk/Benefit-g...are-my-options

[msmit260]

Re: Child Benefit Overpayment

Hi. We had to pay all three years in one go. They required £2700 from us. We paid that but are contesting the fines which amount to £500. !!!

[ccoope11]

We have also just discovered that we were paid too much child benefit - I moved from part time to full time work to compensate for my husband being unable to work due to being struck down by a sudden life changing health condition. We now need to pay back all of our benefit for the 2016-17 tax year. I had not completed a self assessment (I'm PAYE and did not realise that I should have done a tax return and for years had been earning under the £50k threshold so as far as I'm aware we never received any correspondence, although the benefit is paid to my husband not me). Now in the process of registering online in preparation for submitting a self assessment. I'm gutted that we are in this position - understand that we need to pay back the overpayments, but I'm worried sick about the fines we may also be facing.

Questions:
1) Do I have to complete the tax return before I can trigger the repayment of the child benefit?
2) What fines will I be facing? Is it the fines as laid down for late filing of tax returns? Is it a unique fine for child benefit - 'Failure to Notify' penalty? Or worse still is it both and if so how much is it likely to be?

Guidance would be really appreciated.