Just had my first sight of a submission for a TC appeal and (after the excitement has died away) I am pretty appalled. Two points of interest:

Appeal concerns a backdate which we request for a period in 2006/7 (standard 3m backdate at start of claim). Delayed decision re claim made in 2008 and award notice issued. Appeals officer says we can't appeal that award notice as no appealable award notice was issued for 2006-7 - after receipt of appeal they issued a manual award notice to client which either never arrived or was never returned. Didn't issue one to us as her representative. (But I'm not upset, I can take it).

Checking ... I see that when award made they issued a provisional tax credit statement re 2006/7 and an amended award for 2007/8. I think the provisional award notice was made under s.14(1) of the Tax Credit Act 2000 and is therefore appealable. Any thoughts?

Secondly, after the appeal was sent in the TCO appeals section sent a letter (not copied to her reps, but really, I don't mind) which explains the decision and includes this paragraph (I've capitalised the bits in bold because I don't know how to do bold in this forum):

"I hope this explains the decision on your claim. Although you may not be satisfied with the outcome, if you agree that the decision is LEGALLY CORRECT, please indicate in the space provided. If not, please give your reasons for continuing with your appeal and we will arrange for your appeal to be considered by the appeal tribunal. PLEASE NOTE THE APPEAL TRIBUNAL WILL LOOK AT WHETHER THE LAW WAS CORRECTLY APPLIED TO THE FACTS OF YOUR CASE. THEY CANNOT PAY MORE MONEY THAN THE LAW WILL ALLOW. Tell us how you wish to proceed, as your appeal against the decision continues unless you indicate otherwise. Please sign and date this letter and return your reply within 14 DAYS. PLEASE LET US KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO DO BY COMPLETING THE APPROPRIATE RESPONSE BELOW."

Is this sort of brow-beating standard???

Sue

I've attempted three tax credit appeals in the past year, and it seems to be standard for the TCO to claim that the client has no right of appeal, and to try to discourage them from continuing. If you get as far as them agreeing to accept an appeal, you are doing well! If they claim the client has no right of appeal, I take a close look at the tax credit law and, if I can find one, quote a regulation, or subsection thereof, at them to establish that the claimant DOES have a right of appeal. After this, they have always agreed to send out appeal papers in due course - and then they do nothing at all for months on end, until I complain to the regional chair of the Tribunals Service and ask him to issue the TCO with a direction to produce appeal papers. I have only had to do this once. For the other two appeals, the TCO "reviewed" the decision and agreed to give the client the maximum three months backdating. Since they had made a revised decision, the original appeal lapsed.
I am in the north west region, and since the chair here was once a welfare rights adviser himself, he seems to retain a keen sense of justice for claimants. Your regional chair may take a different approach, but you won't know until you ask him to issue directions.
I am getting the distinct impression that the TCO will do anything to avoid an actual appeal hearing, so if you persist you might at least get them to concede part of the backdating you are after.
Good luck!

I put in a submission and attended last week.

There was a Presenting Officer who usually dealt with tax appeals and didn't seem to want to dispute anything we said, except that we didn't have a right of appeal against the particular notice we appealed.

We got over that without a decision being made on the appealability of the notice by me agreeing to lodge an appeal there and then against a later notice and the PO accepting that appeal as duly made on the spot.

Bit of a waste of taxpayer's I thought, but quite chummy and pleasant.

Sue

My client was told to repay all the TC which she received during the years 2005--8. No reason was given, except that this happened after she phoned to tell them that her husband was on Immigration Control. She asked to appeal and sent a letter contesting the fact that she was not entitled to TC but she never received an appeal form, so no appeal was processed. She was sent a TC846 form and received no reply for about 11 months.

When she saw me it was quite close to the crucial 13th month. She had only a hand issued notification of nil entitlement for the year 2007-8 dated end of July 2007, and nothing else except a threat from the Debt Management Unit to repay 9,000 pounds or she would be taken to court.

I wrote to the TCO asking to revise their decision and gave the legislation for it about entitlement of couples with one on Immigration Control. Then I added a short request to appeal against the notice concerning 2007-8. I also wrote that other two similar decision were made around the end of July 2007 regarding the previous two tax years, I didn't know their dates but I wanted to appeal against them as well.

The TCO rejected my appeal against the notification about 2007-8 with no reasons, except that I had no right to appeal against 'the issues I raised'.

But there was a big surprise: they sent to me letters which confirmed to have 'filed my appeals' against a list of decisions. But the surprise became a shock when I checked the dates of those decisions and found out that the TCO had picked ALL the favourable decisions issued in the previous 13 months and filed appeals against them! In this list there was no trace of those crucial decisions which had disentitled my clients to TC and created the overpayment. The TCO denied the existence of such decisions, so all the decisions which I had a right to appeal against were only those favourable to my client and they were more than happy to process these appeals!

I rushed to my client's home and searched all her papers and eventually found a finalised award for the year 2006-7 issued in August 2007 which said that she was entitled to nil TC. It had written black on white that it carried a right to appeal. This happened 5 days before the 13th month so I sent an appeal letter on the same day, and faxed it to be sure that it would get there on time.

The TCO denied the existence of this award (and still deny the existence of the decisions about 2007-8 and 2005-6) in order to prevent me to start an appeal against them.

Franz Kafka must roll in his grave out of envy for their perverse creativity.

I think such blatant and deliberate breaking of the law in relation to a client's right to appeal warrants a complaint direct to the Parliamentary Ombudsman. Is your local MP any good? You would be best enlisting his/her help.
Alternatively, start the judicial review protocol. You would need to find out the address of the TCO's legal department that deals with litigation (as opposed to fraud prosecutions).

Eventually got the MP involved because after the appeal was won they wouldn't pay up. Thankfully all sorted now.