Increase in tax credit complaints

Claimants are increasingly failing to check their figures

The number of tax credit complaints handled by the official adjudicator nearly tripled in the last financial year to 569.

Most of the complaints were about disputed overpayments.

But the Adjudicator's Office, led by Dame Barbara Mills, upheld only 74% of them, down from 86% the previous year.

She said there were fewer cases where overpayments should be written off, as claimants were failing to check their tax credit awards were correct.

Dame Barbara said: "The onus is on the taxpayer or claimant to read carefully the relevant notices and to check that the tax due, or the award, has been calculated on the basis of correct information.

"As a result, in many cases, we cannot uphold the complaint because it is clear that the complainant did not take notice of the relevant instructions and guidance."

Clearing the backlog

One reason for the dramatic increase in the number of tax credit complaints was the fact that the Tax Credit Office had cleared a backlog of disputed payments.

Within this, the number about receiving multiple award notices dropped, but there were more in which a claimant's award was due to incorrect information.

It was in these cases that claimants had typically failed to check that their award notices showed the correct details.

Even so, Dame Barbara pointed out that complaints were still being generated by computer problems, poor communication by staff, a poor procedure for handling initial complaints and the lack of a casework system within HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).

She welcomed a new feature of the HMRC's procedures, in which each complainant will have a single point of contact within the department who will deal with the case until it is resolved.

She said this should lead to a drop in the number of complaints being escalated to her office.

The HMRC welcomed this point. A spokesperson said: "With fewer than 600 claimants taking their complaint to the Adjudicator, this represents around 0.009% of the 6 million families and 10 million children who currently benefit from tax credits.

"The vast majority of customers have not experienced problems with their claims or payments."