• Increased use of real time information shared between HMRC and DWP to further reduce Fraud and Error in the benefits system. 

Question, what happens with a UC claim when a claimant such as one I have at present is being told by HMRC that she worked and had income from wages during 2013 when in fact she did no work that year and has letters from the alleged employer confirming that she did no work and received no pay during the period. HMRC are adamant that as their RTI system shows the claimant worked they are ignoring the evidence to the contrary. an appeal has been lodged against the tax credit decision but under UC what is the claimant suppose to live on ???

thinking about this overnight; whilst I can’t answer the last part of your question, my feel is you will have to go to tribunal with your evidence of no work for the period and have the tribunal decide.  DWP/HMRC will have to come up with some evidence to counter that, they can’t just say “computer says otherwise” since whatever is in their system has to have been put in by someone.  If they are relying on Class 1 contribution records to show she did some work, your client can write to Longbenton and they will confirm to her exactly what NI contributions she paid in any one tax year, broken down by employer/number of weeks if necessary (you have to be clear in what you ask for….)

If that produces info that she paid class 1 stamp for the period, then that will be right as it is based on employer’s annual return to HMRC.

sadly, they are not usually quick with these things…

My initial reaction is to escalate. As HMRC is slow to react, you could try to complain and advise to contact the MP. Justice delayed is justice denied, to quote a phrase, so I’d be thinking about what I want and then pressurising the relevant agency/ies to make that happen. If it does have to proceed to a hearing, the more information you have, the better.

You might try asking an organisation like Tax Aid for their take on it. They have access to contacts in HMRC that mere mortals lack. The only potential sticking point is that they don’t help with Tax Credit enquiries any more. However, you might get lucky.

Good luck.

Thanks for replies, I have half a dozen ongoing tax credity appeals that were lodged over 2 years ago. My worry is that even our local MP who is not afraid to go on the attack is intimidated by hmrc these days. Lets just hope that UC is given a lethal injection after the May elections.

We (LITRG) are looking a lot at RTI and tax credits/UC/benefits. Feel free to drop me an email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Unfortunately for tax credits it will need an appeal, however it is an issue I can raise via the BCCG group to find out how they are dealing with RTI discrepancies. UC is more complicated because of the wording of the legislation and we have lots of concerns about incorrect RTI data and how it will impact awards.

Victoria

Victoria, many thanks, i think this will be a very big issue when UC gets going for employed claimants. The problem is likley to be at hmrc end I guess. There is according to hmrc, an RTI helpline but when I called it the number was never answered and if the response isanything like the TCO it will be less than helpful. I will e mail you and perhaps you can add me to your Data Base.

When I’ve got 5 minutes I want to have a look at the new electronic tax return proposals and think how they will affect employed and self employed people and whether there will be any way to link from them into DWP for S/E in particular.

Thank goodness Universal Credit is so simple.

Just had a reply from hmrc tax credits, I have a cl who the paye office has confirmed has had her national insurance number used by some one else so it shows her earnings as higher than they are, tax credits simply say in their respopnse that’ as the paye system shows 2 employers th

Just had a reply from hmrc tax credits, I have a cl who the paye office has confirmed has had her national insurance number used by some one else so it shows her earnings as higher than they are, tax credits simply say in their respopnse that’ as the paye system shows 2 employers that is what they will use to detemine the tax credit award and they will not change that decison until paye has investigated the problem,