Can anyone tell me - where you want to appeal a final assessment because it includes an overpayment which reduces the award - which section of the Act do you quote to show HMRC that you have a right of appeal? I say this as it is clear from previous posts that they will try to argue that an appeal is not possible.

Thanks!

There is not a right of appeal against a decision to recover an overpayment as opposed to a dispute as to whether an overpayment has actually occurred.

Tax Credits Act 2002 Reg 38 and 39 deal with what is and what is not appealable

The main appealable decision in Tax Credits is on entitlement - ie, have they done the sums right and included or excluded everything they should. Since any overpayment cannot be determined without looking at entitlement, that's the reason why the fact and amount of overpayment are appealable.
There is of course no right of appeal about decisions to recover in soc sec law either, but at least there are some overpayments that are not recoverable and you can appeal about that.

A while ago there was some discussion about lodging appeals on the numbers, in view of the strong possibility that the Revenue would not be able to substantiate the maths behind the amount of the overpayments claimed.

The idea was to then ask the LQPM to reject the overpayment, because the Revenue would not be able to justify the amount claimed.

Has anyone actually tried/had any success with this?

Steve

Does anyone have software that is actually capable of checking the accuracy of an entitlement decision other than an absolutely straightforward one unchanged for a whole year? I once heard that it had been admitted by IR (as was) that there was no package except their own capable of calculating the effect of several changes of circs within one tax year.
Never mind an LQPM with nothing more sophisticated than a pocket calculator.

Quick Benefits is capable of doing relevant periods of under a year, but I have never really mastered it. It is painful enough to contemplate a welfare benefits adviser trying to calculate 8 relevant periods going back three years, coupled to the claimant's hazy memory of effective dates in the summer of 2005, let alone the poor old LQPM. I was hoping things would not need to get that far.

If the Revenue would not be able to justify their own overpayment figure, surely there would be no need to check it!

Steve

Isn't the problem of an appeal on the numbers the burden of proof.

In SS the DWP has to show that there has ben an O/P and how much & that it is C's fault - burden of them.

In TC appeal on the numbers C has to show that the final award is wrong - burden on C.
Philip Boyd

Has anyone actually tried to calculate entitlement by following the regulation (i.e. not using a calc form, software package, etc)? It's well worth a go. But make sure you have several hours and large quantities of caffeine available....!!