Client has o/p of around £1550 in 04/05. For complicated reasons involving full recovery of basic CTC every year since then and then strange repayments every March he is still repaying it.

He started 04 unemployed and then got a job May 04. His wife was earning less than £10,000. He informed them straight away and he has a notice dated June 04 estimating their joint annual income correctly at £27,000. But the notice also gives him full CTC and £67 a week of WTC as well. (It should have been basic CTC only). At that time there were no explanations of the award on the notice.

He appealed against the o/p at the time and the response dated Feb 07 says that the reason for the overpayment was that he had wrongly told them that the joint income was £22,000 and only later in the year did they discover it was £27,000. My client at the time did not study it all closely and thought he had reached the end of the road. He has only just found the June 04 notice.

In the light of this blatant 'reajustment of the situation' - what would anyone advise is the best tactic to follow it up.

Go through the complaints/disputes procedure (see COP 1). Also if he hasn't yet done so do a Data Protection Act request for all paperwork & CD of all calls. Menawhile, send them (recorded delivery) a copy of the June 04 award & point out this makes it clear he did not fail in his responsibility. Therefore, as they appear to be deciding these old cases on the basis of the new COP26 they should write it off, as they seem to have failed in their reponsibilities.

In May 2004 there was a known error called the 'Red A' overpayment whereby the correct income was shown on the award notice, but the calculation behind the scenes actually used a nil income for either or both parties.

I have seen several of these cases. In most of them a letter explaining the error was sent in August 2004. It sounds like this could very well be one of those cases.

Either way, I would send in a new dispute and in bold state that you have new evidence attaching a copy of the June 2004 award notice. As Derek has said, under the new test, all you need to do is show that HMRC failed their responsibilities (failed to calculate the award correctly) and the claimant met theirs (there was no error on the notice that was visible to the claimant - they are only required to check details not the calculation).

Good luck with it.

Victoria