Have your say on Tax Credits

Hundreds of thousands of people continue to suffer hardship because overpayments of tax credits are clawed back.

National charity Citizens Advice is giving people a chance to have their say on the problems they have experienced through an online survey on the national charity’s website adviceguide.org.uk.

The quick and easy survey, which runs throughout April, asks about tax credits and any problems people may have encountered with their claim, such as difficulties in understanding the award notice and whether the award was correct.

Other questions aim to find out whether people have been overpaid tax credits, the reasons and how easy it was to understand or challenge the decision. Citizens Advice is keen to know if the experience would deter people from claiming again in the future.

The answers will help shape the charity’s evidence designed to improve the Government’s track record on tax credits

Last year Citizens Advice Bureaux across the UK dealt with more than 150,000 tax credit problems. In many of the cases, overpayments were the result of unacceptable levels of official error, or a failure to act on the information provided when people report a change in circumstances that would affect their entitlement.

Citizens Advice social policy officer John Wheatley said: “Some families have been left seriously out of pocket and confused because they are being asked to pay back tax credits, which they believed they were entitled to. Challenging the recovery of overpayments is not easy and currently thousands of families are being threatened with court action. People often say that they have received contradictory award notices, or been told that the money definitely is theirs; overpayments can even happen when no mistake has been made. We want to find out what people really think about tax credits and whether any difficulties they have experienced would make them reluctant to claim again.

“The results of the survey will also give us a clearer idea of how people have been affected and what they think should be done.

Our survey will provide ordinary people with the opportunity to make sure their opinions are heard.”

In June 2005, a report from Citizens Advice found that the operation of the tax credit system and the way overpayments were recovered caused huge hardship and confusion to many families. It argued that major improvements in the administration of the scheme and changes in the recovery of overpayments were crucial if confidence in the scheme were to be restored.