Bit of background first for those who live outside the UK or don't know about tax credits. The tax credit system was introduced by the government to replace income support (benefit for low income families), married man's tax allowance and child tax allowance. The money is paid by giro or direct to your bank account. The amount you get depends on how much you earn, how many hours you work and how many children you have. My wife and I receive £150 per week in total as my salary is fairly low by national averages.
People entitled to Tax Credits (Family or Child) may be experiencing the same problems as me. There is a bug with the new computer system which is causing thousands of people's payments to fail. I haven't been paid any tax credits for 2 weeks now. I spent over half an hour on the phone to them this morning and I may have got a tad irate. In the 5 weeks running up to April they discovered that they had mis-calculated my payments and took £100 per week off me for those 5 weeks. Normal payments were due to start again 2 weeks ago but because of this problem with the computers I haven't been paid.
The only advice they had was to wait for the problem to be fixed and then the payments would be made in a few weeks or go to the local Tax Enquiry Office for a one-off preliminary payment. The local Tax Enquiry Office is in Wolverhampton, you have to turn up in person with ID and they will then make a decision as to whether you are entitled to a hardship payment. To be entitled to a hardship payment you have to provde red bills or legal notices over bills. Neither of these I have. I had to sell one of my cars at the weekend because we needed the money.
Anyway, I got absolutely nowhere with it. They refuse to pay me by any other methods. So, out of sheer desperation I phoned the Shropshire Star (my local newspaper) to see if they can apply any pressure to get something done. They ran the story last night (I'll scan it in when I get a chance).
I rang them back yesterday because they told the Shropshire Star to advise me to keep ringing the helpline. I got told the same old rubbish by the lackey on the phone who then hung up on me because we were going round in circles.
I called them back after reading their leaflet COP1 on the Inland Revenue website. It says you can phone and ask to speak to the customer relations or complaints manager for that office. I was told they didn't have one and that I would have to wait for a call back from a manager "some time next week" to decide if I had a valid complaint. I politely pointed out that that wasn't the complaints procedure to be told I had an out of date leaflet! I explained I was currently reading it off the IR website and was told the website must be out of date. I asked who the manager would refer me to if they thought I had a valid complaint and was told it would be the complaints manager. Ahem. I thought they didn't have one? I said this to the flunky on the phone and he told me he couldn't give me their contact details.P>
So you see, they do have a complaints manager but they just won't put you through to them. It was too close to 8pm to kick up a fuss last night but I will be phoning them back today to insist they follow their own complaints procedure. I will be putting in a compensation claim for phone calls, bank charges, overdraft interest and the shortfall from what I had to sell my car for to what it was worth.
I just spoke to someone reasonably helpful and he said my complaint had been referred to the Director's office for someone from there to call me back by close of business tomorrow.
The newspaper story is as follows ...
Tax blunders forced me to sell car, says father
A Telford father-of-four has been forced to sell his car in order to feed his family and pay his mortgage after he claims he has become another victim of an Inland Revenue blunder.
Stewart Parr, 27, of Briarwood, Brook-side, is furious that a series of errors with his family tax and child tax credits hy the Inland Revenue has left him hundreds of pounds out of pocket.
Mr Parr, who works full-time and his wife,
Lesley, 29, who works part-time, were devastated when they received a letter five weeks before the new tax year to "tell them their tax credits had been calculated wrongly.
The latest case comes after Shane Wheeler, of Springfield Green, Shrewsbury, was compensated by the Inland Revenue after she received just £10 in tax credit in three weeks and sold her belongings at a car boot sale.
The Inland Revenue told Mr and Mrs Parr, who have four children aged seven, five, two and seven months old, that £100 would be taken from their weekly credit of £150 for five weeks.
But now Mr Parr said after "struggling" with just £50 in tax credit for five weeks, they have not received any tax credits for the last two weeks, leaving them £300 out of pocket.
Mr Parr was forced to sell the family car
this week to pay the mortgage and feed his four young children.
He said: "I've been told it's a computer problem which means I haven't had tax credits for two weeks.
"1 told them it was causing me great hardship with my family,"
A spokesman for the Inland Revenue said they could not comment on individual cases but advised Mr Parr to keep phoning the helpline on (0845) 300 3900.