Child Tax Credits

No - because you have stated yourself you don`t have to make a return if your income is within the stated bands. It is those who should make a return who are urged to return them. Even if you don`t have to make a return it is urging those to check their circumstances to determine if they have to or not. If you get the basic family / baby element it will carry on as normal.

But that isn't made very clear, I only stumbled across it in the small print. Why are we still be urged to return our claims. Why is the advice not put in the context that if your circumstances haven't changed that you don't need to make a return.

Kevin

I don`t know for sure. However one reason could be legal implications for cases taken up for investigation based on the information on the end of year declaration. Imagine someone claims childcare and it ceases in year. They should of course report the change in year. What would happen if this person pretended there is no change of circumstances so never returns the declaration ? How are they caught if they have not made an incorrect declaration ? At present past years cannot be taken up if the declaration is outstanding in the period 6 April to the 1st specified date - now 31 August 2006. If there is no declaration on what is the offence based ? The Tax Credit Act 2002 specifies the different offences and the penalties relating to those offences. In short the declaration is required in most cases. This is very general.

I wait with baited breath to see whether my claim is stopped or not. Although the guidelines seem clear I have very little faith that the IR have the first clue as to what they are doing. I fully expect the claim to be rejected now but I could be pleasently surprised.

Kevin

"People who claimed tax credits in the last financial year were sent annual review packs between April and June. The forms have to be filled in and returned to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) with any extra information required."

I was sent a review but no forms to fill in as per previous years. I was then told by the IR that I HAD to do it over the phone. Then when reading the mega bumpf that they sent it said that if my income was between two figures ( about 20000 and 70000) I did not need to make a return.

The CTC agency and the BBC however are urging people to return their tax credit claims.

What the hell is going on, do I or don't I need to make a return.

No wonder the tax credits system is a f**k up.

Kevin

Mine has auto renewed OK without me doing anything the last 2 years. But although the annual amount has stayed exactly the same for the last 3 years, so you'd have thought it'd be simple, they still manage to piss me around - for the last 2 years they've paid me a random extra amount in May (35 one year, 15 the next) and reduced the subsequent payments the rest of the year to take it back!

There were problems when payments were duplicated but I think that is resolved. If you were overpaid but the award was not changed I presume it is a computer fault.

the

thought

The payments weren't duplicated - what happened was the payment got auto renewed in May sometime and everything then got recalculated (even though it didn't need to be), and they worked out what I was due to that date of renewal, paid it, and then recalculated it for the rest of the year. It works out exactly to the penny to the date of the letter - so that must be what happened. A very messy way of doing things...