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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Income support, JSA and tax credits  →  Thread

UC Migration by Stealth

Stainsby
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Welfare rights adviser - Plumstead Community Law Centre

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The so called mandatory reconsideration in ESA work capability assessments is still the subject of a judicial review, but I have just come across a letter from HMRC addressed to one of my clients which asks her to reconsider her claim for tax credits as a single person

I contains some very misleading advice about what being part of a couple is, and it could easily end up with mistaken claims for universal credit

I have uploaded an anonymised copy of the letter here

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ClairemHodgson
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Solicitor, SC Law, Harrow

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indeed.

repeats the rot the DWP often trot out - you’re not allowed a boyfriend even if you don’t live together ....

gah!

Peter Turville
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Welfare rights worker - Oxford Community Work Agency

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Its a standard letter sent out as part of the compliance process (remember the Concentrix debacle?) when HMRC have a suspicion (usually from data matching / credit reference agency info.) that there may be another person in the household.

The next stage is often the ‘you need to prove your single claim’ letter which requests the claimant to provide a long list of docs. inc. rent/mortgage details, bank statements, insurance details, council tax demand etc.

Followed by the ‘you are not entitled to claim as a single person ’ letter because ‘we already have enough information to link [person X] to your address’. However HMRC will never disclose what that evidence is until the appeal stage. This letter is usually (but not always - just a TC607 letter) followed by a separate entitlement and overpayment decision ending the single claim and providing the right to MR.

There is of course a very long list of UT decisions that address various aspects of the way HMRC arrive at such ‘living together’ decisions - they are not favourable to HMRC!

ClairemHodgson
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Solicitor, SC Law, Harrow

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and i recall a case a couple of years or so ago where they matched a single mother to her landlord, a well known newsagents chain….

Peter Turville
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Welfare rights worker - Oxford Community Work Agency

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ClairemHodgson - 18 March 2019 02:46 PM

and i recall a case a couple of years or so ago where they matched a single mother to her landlord, a well known newsagents chain….

Yep - and I have had cases were the link was made to the claimant’s father, another woman down the street (credit reference had transposed the house no), late partner etc etc. I have yet to see a case in which HMRC have made a ‘proper’ LT investigation and sought/use anything other credit reference and other centrally stored data.

AlexJ
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Trafford Welfare Rights

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I had a client who was accused of being in a relationship with her landlord. Because, surprise surprise, when HMRC did checks, they found links between the landlord and a house he owned and in which he used to live! That was literally their only evidence. We’ve found a connection between this bloke to a house he owns, so you must be in a relationship with him. There was all the fuss about Concentrix but HMRC on their own are no better.