COP27 - Child Tax Credit and Working Tax CreditLocal Office Enquiries Contents - Archive only version

To be used for archive purposes only and should not be used for new cases.

Contents

Any special needs

If you have any special needs, for example related to a disability, we will help you as much as we can. If it would be helpful to meet to discuss any errors in your claim to tax credits, but your disability means it is difficult for you to travel to us, then we can visit you at home or your place of employment if you ask us to.

Please explain your needs to the person who has written to you (their details are on any letter they have sent) or phone your local Inland Revenue Enquiry Centre and ask to speak to the Customer Services Manager. Office phone numbers are in your local phone book under `Inland Revenue' and at www.inlandrevenue.gov.uk/local

If you phone, please have any letter we have sent you handy, as we may need to ask you for some details from it.

Why are you sending me this booklet?

We are sending you this booklet because we have written to you to say we are enquiring into your tax credit award, and we want to tell you what you can expect, and what your rights and obligations are. If you claimed your award as a member of a couple, we write to you both separately, and send you both separate copies of this booklet.

We may already have carried out an examination into the same claim. If so, our enquiry concerns further information relating to your award which we need to ask you about. We explain the difference between an examination and an enquiry later in this leaflet.

This Code of Practice tells you how our local offices will carry out enquiries. It gives you a chance to understand the process and ask us any questions. It promises you fair treatment under the law and in accordance with our service commitment to you. There is a copy of the service commitment at the back of this booklet, which explains the rules that we will follow and your rights and responsibilities in particular situations.

What do you mean by "enquiring into" my award?

During the year, we pay you tax credits in a provisional amount, based on your income for an earlier year. After the end of the year, when you have told us what your actual income was for the year, we adjust the amount of tax credits you were due for the year based on your actual income. Any adjustments in the amount paid are normally added to or reduced from the amount of tax credit you receive for the following year. We carry out enquiries after the end of the year, once you have confirmed your income and circumstances for that year, in order to check you have received the right amount of tax credit.

We will ask you questions about any points that we need to clear up, so that we can put right any mistakes as soon as possible. The questions we will ask you during our enquiry will normally be about your circumstances and your income. We will consider the circumstances you reported in your claim and any changes you have, or should have, told us about. We will also check that you have reported your income correctly.

What is the difference between an examination and an enquiry?

  • Examinations - We carry out examinations during the year, either before we pay you tax credits or while we are paying you tax credits on a provisional basis.
  • Enquiries - We carry out enquiries after the end of the year, when you have reported your income and circumstances for the year just gone, to ensure that the amount of tax credits we have paid you is correct. If we have examined your claim during the year, it does not mean that we will enquire into your entitlement after the end of the year. But if we do need to ask you questions about your entitlement after the end of the year, we can enquire into it whether or not we examined your claim during the year.

Why have you decided to enquire into my claim?

We carry out enquiries into claims after the end of the year in order

  • to check you have received the right amount of tax credit, and
  • to ensure we are properly administering the tax credits system. We want to ensure that people are receiving the right amount of tax credit.

When will you enquire into my award?

We enquire into tax credits awards after they are made final. Your tax credit award becomes final after you have confirmed your income and circumstances for the year of your tax credit award.

It will normally take some time after 6 April, the end of the tax credit year, for you to confirm your income and circumstances for that year. So most enquiries will not start until May or June following the year of award at the earliest. If you are self employed you have until 31 January of the following year to return your self assessment income and until you have done this your income for tax credits purposes is not final. In some cases an enquiry may be started a long time after the end of the year of award (i.e. some months after that 31 January date).

We will write to you, and send you this booklet, whenever we are enquiring into your claim. If you are concerned about the timing of an enquiry you can ask the person carrying out the enquiry to explain our statutory powers. Once we start an enquiry into your claim we will bring it to an end as soon as we have received all the information we need to make a decision about your award.

Do I have to co-operate with your enquiry?

We would welcome your co-operation in establishing your entitlement to tax credits. The extent to which you co-operate and provide us with information is entirely a matter for you to decide. It may be a good idea to get independent advice on this.

We will make notes of all meetings, and copies of these notes will be given to you or your adviser if you ask for them.

Our enquiry may show that an offence has been committed for which you may have to pay a penalty, which is worked out as described in leaflet WTC4 "Tax Credit Penalties: How tax credit enquiries are settled".

In calculating the amount of the penalty, we will take into account the extent to which you have been helpful and have freely and fully volunteered any information about income or circumstances which were omitted or incorrectly stated. You can find further information about penalties on pages 9 & 10.

Can I have help to deal with your enquiry?

If you prefer, we will deal with someone else on your behalf. This might be an accountant, tax adviser or other professional adviser, a voluntary sector adviser (such as a Citizens' Advice Bureau), or a friend or relative.

If you want us to write to them or to discuss your affairs with them over the telephone, we will need a short letter, signed by you, which confirms that you have authorised us to do so. The letter should include your full name, address, postcode and any tax credit reference number you have. If you have claimed tax credits as a couple and you want us to discuss matters which are relevant to both of you with someone else, the letter will need to be signed by both you and your partner.

If we do not have such a letter from you, another person may still phone one of our contact centres on your behalf, as long as we are satisfied that you are present with them at the time and you confirm that you are happy for us to speak to them. For couples, we will need both you and your partner to confirm that you are happy for us to speak to someone else on your behalf if you want us to discuss matters which are relevant to both of you.

You will always remain personally responsible for the information provided by another person on your behalf and for paying back overpaid tax credit. If we cannot make any progress with your adviser regarding outstanding information we will contact you directly. We will also continue to send you copies of important documents as well.

What do I have to do if you ask for information?

You should respond as promptly as you can when we ask for information.

This will help to keep your time and costs, and ours, to a minimum. Where we need to ask further questions, we will make it clear what it is that we need to know and why. We may need to see documents such as bank statements or household bills. Once again we will tell you why we are asking for them and exactly what it is that we need to see. If you have made a claim as a member of a couple, we will normally ask both of you for the information, though we will sometimes ask only one of you to provide it.

We will try to

  • take up as little of your time as possible by asking early on in our enquiry for everything we need to know
  • avoid asking for information in a piecemeal way, but this is not always possible as one question may lead to another.

Time limits

We will give you a reasonable amount of time to let us have the information - normally 30 days, but we will be flexible about this. You should tell us if you think we have not given you enough time, say how much longer you need and why. We will let you have more time if this seems reasonable. If we cannot agree we will give you our reasons.

You should tell us straight away if

  • you have difficulty getting the information we need and we will discuss with you how you might get hold of it, or
  • you think it is not relevant to our enquiry.

We will consider the reasons carefully, and if we still think we need the information we will explain why.

Formal powers

It is vital that you contact us if you cannot send the information we have asked for as, after the time limit is up, we can use our statutory powers to obtain it.

If it gets to this stage we will first

  • explain our statutory powers and how we intend to use them
  • inform you of any possible penalties that might arise if you do not let us have the information we have asked for
  • tell you about your right to appeal to an independent appeals tribunal.

Our leaflets WTC4 "Tax Credit Penalties: How tax credit enquiries are settled" and WTC/AP "How to appeal against a tax credit decision or award" contain more information on penalties and on appeals.

Returning documents

Any documents you have sent to us will be returned to you as soon as possible. If you need them before that, you may ask us to return them. You should tell us what you need, and when you think you will be able to return them to us. We will then either

  • send them to you, with the understanding that you will send them back to us complete and undamaged, or
  • if we cannot return the original documents we will send a copy out, free of charge and within seven days of receiving your request, if possible.

Will you obtain information from anyone else?

As part of our enquiry it may be necessary for us to contact an employer or childcare provider to confirm information relevant to your claim. If so, the contact will always be in writing or by telephone, and we will tell you in advance what we intend to do.

What happens if you ask for a meeting?

We may ask to meet you and any other appropriate person, including your spouse or partner, to find out more about your claim. You can also ask your adviser or helper to attend the meeting.

You do not have to come to meetings but they give you the chance to explain any points you think we may not have understood, and to ask questions. You can ask for a meeting at any time during our enquiry.

Place and time

We may suggest that a meeting takes place at

  • your home, or
  • our offices.

You should tell us if the place we have suggested is not convenient for you, or if you have any special needs, for example, wheelchair access or an interpreter.

We will always try to agree with you in advance where and when the meeting will take place. Meetings normally take place in office hours, but if this is difficult for you, you should tell us, and we will try to meet you at another time.

In exceptional circumstances we may need to visit you at your home without prior agreement. We will only do this if we have repeatedly tried, and failed, to contact you in writing and by telephone. If we do call on you unannounced you can refuse to answer our questions immediately. Then we will try to arrange another time to visit you, or for you to call at our offices. We will never visit you at your place of work without agreeing the visit with you in advance.

If we visit you at your home, we will show you our official identification. Even if you have agreed that we should meet at your home, you do not have to answer our questions there and then if you prefer not to do so. You should tell us if this is the case, and we will try to arrange another meeting, or will put our questions in writing.

Answering our questions

These meetings are a very important part of the enquiry process, so if you are not sure of an answer, or cannot remember, say so. If you believe an answer you gave may not be correct then let us know straight away.

Bringing documents

When you come to a meeting please make sure that you, or the person helping you, bring with you any papers or documents (such as bank statements or household bills) that you may need to answer our questions about your claim. If you are unsure what you may need you can ask us.

Taking notes

We will take notes of any meetings we have with you and let you have a copy as soon as possible afterwards. We may ask you to sign these, to show that they cover what was talked about. You can comment on these notes and tell us about anything you disagree with. You do not have to sign them or comment on them, but a signed record could be useful if we cannot reach agreement and have to ask an independent tribunal to decide matters.

You or the person helping you can also take notes during the meeting.

Can I stop your enquiry?

Yes. You can ask an independent tribunal - The Appeals Service - to look at your enquiry and to direct us to complete it by making a decision on your tax credit award for the year of enquiry. The tribunal will consider whether it is reasonable for the enquiry to continue or not. tribunal.

If the tribunal decides the enquiry should be closed we will close your enquiry by taking a decision as to the amount of tax credits you should have received during the year of award. If you disagree with this decision you can appeal against it. Tax leaflet WTC/AP "How to appeal against a tax credit decision or award" sets out how to do this.

Will you alter my current payments during your enquiry?

Where as part of our enquiry information comes to light that could affect your current tax credits payments we may open an examination into that year's claim. Normally we will not make any change to the amount we pay until we have finished that examination. We would expect to finish the examination and the enquiry at the same time.

Occasionally we may need to amend your award, and reduce or stop your current tax credit payments before our examination and enquiry are complete. If we do so, you will have the right to appeal against the decision.

How will I know when you have finished your enquiry?

We will always write to you to tell you that we have finished our enquiry and let you know what action, if any, we propose to take.

What happens if you find nothing wrong during your enquiry?

If we have all the information we need and find nothing wrong, we will tell you and let you know that we have finished our enquiry.

What happens if you find something wrong?

We may find that you have received too little or too much tax credits for the year of enquiry. We will take different action depending on whether you have been paid too little or too much.

What happens if you find I have been paid too little tax credit?

During our enquiry we may find that there is a mistake in your claim, and that you are entitled to more tax credits than you received. If so, we will revise your award and pay you the additional tax credits you are owed. We will pay you all you are owed for the tax credit year of the enquiry in a single payment. If the mistake also affects your tax credits claim for the current year we will note the change in circumstances giving rise to an increased award and adjust your payments so that you receive the higher rate and any backdated increase you are owed.

What happens if you find I have been paid too much tax credit?

As a result of our enquiry we may decide that

  • you should not have received any tax credit at all, or
  • you have been paid more tax credits than you were due.

What action we will take depends on whether the reduction in your entitlement is due to our mistake or not.

Where you have been overpaid tax credit because of a mistake by us.

In most cases where you have received too much tax credits because of our mistake we will seek to recover the overpayment. There are two exceptions to this general rule:

  • Where it is reasonable for you to have thought the tax credit award was correct, we would not ask you to pay back the overpayment.
  • Where, after considering all the facts repayment would cause you and your family hardship, we may decide not to collect all or part of an overpayment, or to allow you more time to pay.

Our Code of Practice "What happens if have paid you too much tax credits (COP 26) explains what we will do. It is available on our website or from Inland Revenue Enquiry Offices.

Where you have been overpaid tax credit in other circumstances.

We may find during our enquiry that you have been overpaid tax credits because:

  • you gave us incorrect information, or
  • you failed to tell us about a change in your circumstances.

We will tell you as soon as possible during our enquiry that you have been overpaid tax credits and how we intend to recover the amount overpaid.

How we will recover the money depends on whether a penalty or interest may be chargeable if there is no penalty or interest due your overpayment may be recovered from future awards of tax credit, or direct from you depending on the amount owed.

Contracts

Where a penalty and/or interest is chargeable, we will try to agree that you pay all that you owe through a contract between us. A contract is an exchange of letters where you offer to pay us any tax credits, penalties and interest you owe, and we accept your offer. Before asking you to enter a contract, we will talk to you and your adviser or helper, if you have one, and give you leaflet WTC4, "Tax Credit Penalties: How tax credit enquiries are settled"

Can I appeal?

When we close the enquiry and discuss the contract with you we will send you a notice of our decision on which the revised amount of tax credits is based.

You can appeal against this decision. You have 30 days from the date shown on the notice of our decision to make your appeal in writing

You can find out more about appeals in our leaflet WTC/AP "How to appeal against a tax credit decision or award" available from our website or from any Inland Revenue Enquiry Centre. Or, if you prefer, we will explain to you how to go about the appeal procedures.

What happens after I have appealed?

We will try, wherever possible, to reach an agreement with you about the amount of tax credits you are entitled to. If we reach agreement with you we will send you a letter setting out the details of the agreement. If this agreement affects the decision we have already made, we will send you a notice of our new decision. If you change your mind about our agreement, you must write to us within 30 days, otherwise the agreement stands.

You are under no obligation to agree with us, and you can seek advice at any time before saying you agree. If we cannot reach an agreement, we will send your appeal, along with an explanation of the law and facts we used to make our decision, to the Appeals Service. Your appeal will then be heard by an appeals tribunal. Both the Appeals Service and the appeals tribunal are completely independent of the Inland Revenue.

Our leaflet WTC/AP "How to appeal against a tax credit decision or award" contains more information about the independent appeals tribunal, and explains what you can expect if they hear your appeal.

Do I have to pay penalties?

You may have to pay penalties if, during our enquiry, we find something wrong with your award which has meant you have received more tax credit than you should.

Penalties can arise where

  • we find something wrong with your claim
  • you provide us with incorrect information

and we consider that you have been fraudulent or negligent. The maximum penalty we can charge you for making an incorrect claim or giving us incorrect information is £3000.

We can only seek penalties for incorrect claims or information if the error was due to negligence or fraud. If you commit a deliberate act of fraud, you may be prosecuted. You may have been negligent even if you did not intend to over-claim tax credits. Before signing your claim and the later notice declaring your claim was 4correct, you should have taken care to ensure that all entries were correct and no change of circumstances had occurred. If you did not do so, this may amount to negligence.

You may also have to pay penalties if you delay in telling us about the following changes in your circumstances:

  • your average weekly childcare costs decrease to nil, or by at least £10 per week, for four consecutive weeks
  • you become, or cease to be, a member of a couple
  • you or your partner leave the UK permanently, or go abroad for more than eight weeks (12 weeks if you remain abroad because you are ill or because a member of your family is ill or has died).

We cannot charge you a penalty in respect of any other changes in your circumstances or income which you did not tell us about.

The maximum penalty we can charge you for failing to tell us about one ofthese changes is £300. You should let us know if you think you have areasonable excuse for not telling us in good time about any of these changes.

You can find more information about "reasonable excuse" in our leaflet WTC4 "Tax Credit Penalties: How tax credit enquiries are settled".

You may also have to pay penalties if you do not send us the information we ask for when we are enquiring into your claim. We can ask the independent appeals tribunal to decide an appropriate initial penalty, up to £300. If you stilldo not provide the information, we may decide to charge further penalties of up to £60 a day until you do send it.

You have the right of appeal against any decision to charge a penalty, whether it has been made by the independent appeals tribunal or by us.

These are the maximum amounts of penalties we can charge, and we do not charge the maximum in every case. When we calculate the amount of any penalty we think you should pay, we will take into account

  • the extent to which you voluntarily disclosed anything that was wrong
  • your help in bringing our enquiry to an end
  • the seriousness of your errors or omissions
  • whether you have previously made an incorrect claim, provided incorrect information, failed to provide information, or failed to tell us about changes in your circumstances.

If, during our enquiry, we think that you may have to pay a penalty, we will give you a copy of our leaflet WTC4 "Tax Credits Penalties: How tax credit enquiries are settled". This leaflet explains how we work out penalties and reach settlements.

You should tell us about any matters you think are relevant when we are working out any penalty that may be charged.

We will try to reach an agreement by contract (see the paragraph headed "Contracts" on page 10 of this leaflet) if we are charging you penalties. If we cannot reach an agreement, we may formally decide the amount of penalty we think is appropriate. If we do this, you will have the right of appeal against our decision .

Do I have to pay interest?

If we have carried out an enquiry into your tax credit claim and find that we have paid you too much tax credit, you may be asked to pay interest on the overpayment as well as paying back the overpayment itself. But we can only ask you to pay back interest if the overpayment arose because of your negligence or fraud. You have the right of appeal against our decision to charge you interest on an overpayment. Interest is also payable if you are late in paying any penalty we have charged.

We may include interest in any contract settlement we reach, rather than charging it separately.

What happens at the end of your enquiry?

When our enquiry has shown something is wrong we will

  • explain what it is
  • tell you how to get things right for the future.

If our enquiry shows your claim was incorrect, or that you provided incorrect information, or failed to tell us in time about a change in your circumstances which you should have notified within three months, we may ask you to sign a Certificate of Full Disclosure. This Certificate confirms that you have now told us about everything that may affect your entitlement to tax credits. We ask you to sign this certificate so that we have your written assurance that you have disclosed all the facts that may be relevant to our enquiry.

We will not ask you to sign a Certificate of Full Disclosure if

  • we found nothing wrong, or
  • your tax credits award was increased as a result of our enquiry, rather than reduced.

If you sign a Certificate of Full Disclosure you know to be false, and we find this out at a later stage, we will take this into account when deciding what further action we need to take. So you should consider the certificate carefully before signing it, to ensure you understand the implications.

Your rights under Our Service Commitment to you During our enquiry

We will always be courteous, fair and professional. We will deal promptly with letters from you or the person you have asked to help you, normally within our 15 working day target for replies. If we cannot reply quickly, for instance because of the amount or complexity of the material you have sent us, we will let you know the reason for the delay.

Keeping you informed

Although we will not give reasons for enquiring into your claim, we will explain your legal rights and the reasons for any actions we take as our enquiry proceeds. We will tell you, for example, why we:

  • think we need a meeting with you
  • are not satisfied with any explanation you may have given
  • have decided not to make an award of tax credits, or to make an award on a different basis from that shown in your claim
  • have decided to amend or terminate your award
  • need to use our statutory powers to obtain information or documents
  • are reviewing your claims to tax credits (including Working Families Tax Credit) for earlier years
  • have decided to amend awards for earlier years.

You can ask us at any time to

  • explain your rights
  • tell you why we have taken a particular action
  • explain what you are obliged to do under the law.

You can ask for these explanations even if we have already given them to the person who is helping you.

You can ask for any of our information leaflets, some of which are listed on page 17. These have been written to help you. We have leaflets in other languages, Braille, large print or audio. Just ask about them at your local Inland Revenue office or Inland Revenue Enquiry Centre. Copies of our leaflets are on our website at www.inlandrevenue.gov.uk.

Privacy and confidentiality

In handling your affairs, we will deal with them on a strictly confidential basis, within the law. If you have made a joint claim with another person, we may need to discuss some details (for example, the income figure you have put on your claim form) with both of you.

We will only give information to people you have not authorised in the limited circumstances allowed by law, for example if your appeal is referred to the appeals tribunal.

We will respect your privacy at all times. If you visit us to discuss your affairs we will find a private room or space for you.

Your costs

We know that dealing with our questions may cost you time and money, so we will only ask for information that we need to check that your claim is correct.

We will end our enquiry as soon as possible. That is, when we are confident your claim is correct, or that all errors or incorrect statements (including failing to tell us about a change of circumstances when you should have done) have been identified and put right, or when we are directed to close the enquiry after an application by you to the Tribunal.

Complaints

Our leaflet Code of Practice 1 "Putting things right - how to complain" explains our complaints procedure, and when we pay compensation for mistakes we make.

Our complaints procedure is easy to use and we suggest you follow the steps below. You can complain by letter, by phone, by fax or in person by visiting any of our offices. We will review your complaint fairly and objectively, but we do need some help from you.

To give you the most help we will need to know your full name, address, National Insurance number and the last reference number we used when contacting you. A telephone number where we might contact you would also be helpful. It would help if you can say what you think has gone wrong and what you think we should do to put it right.

When you have a complaint

Please write to, or ask to speak to, the Customer Relations or Complaints Manager for the office you have been dealing with. Tell them you are unhappy and want to complain. If you are writing, it will help if you write 'Complaint' at the top of your letter. We will look into your concerns and contact you as soon as possible. We expect to resolve most complaints at this stage.

Still unhappy?

If we cannot settle your complaint at this stage, please ask the Director with overall responsibility for the office concerned to review your complaint. You can do this in writing, by fax or phone, or we can do this for you if you prefer.

If you have any queries about who to contact, please ask.

The Adjudicator

If you're not happy with the Director's response you can ask the Adjudicator to look into your complaint. The Adjudicator is a fair and unbiased referee whose recommendations are independent. You can contact the Adjudicator at

The Adjudicator's Office
Haymarket House
28 Haymarket
London
SW1Y 4SP

Tel: 020 7930 2292 (Typetalk facilities are available)
Fax: 020 7930 2298

You can also contact the Adjudicator

The Adjudicator's Office leaflet AO1 (available from the Adjudicator's Office and Inland Revenue offices) tells you how to make a complaint and gives information on what the Adjudicator can look into.

If at any time you are not satisfied with the service you are receiving from the Adjudicator, or with our handling of your complaint, you can ask an MP to refer your case to the Parliamentary Ombudsman. The Ombudsman will accept referrals from any MP, but you should approach your own MP first.

Further information is available from

Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration
Millbank Tower
Millbank
London
SW1P 4QP

Helpline: 0845 015 4033
Fax: 0207 217 4160

Or contact the Parliamentary Ombudsman

You can also ask your MP to take up your case with the Inland Revenue or Treasury Ministers.

Suggestions

We set high standards for the way we check claims and carry out our enquiries and are always looking for ways to improve those standards.

If you would like to suggest any changes to the way we do things, or if you have any comments about this Code of Practice, please write to us at the following address:

Inland Revenue
Cross Cutting Policy
Somerset House

Further information

We produce a wide range of leaflets, booklets and helpsheets designed to explain different aspects of your tax credits in plain English, and to assist you with the completion of claim forms. Most of them are free, and most are also available in Welsh.

Some you might find useful are

COP1: Putting things right - how to complain

COP11: Self Assessment: local office enquiries
WTC/AP How to appeal against a tax credit decision or award
COP26: What happens if we pay you too much tax credit
WTC4 Tax Credit Penalties: How tax credit enquiries are settled

We have a full range of services for people with disabilities, including leaflets in Braille, audio and large print. For details, please ask your local Inland Revenue office or Enquiry Centre, or visit the Inland Revenue website.

Our IR List "Catalogues of leaflets and booklets" gives further information about our publications, most of which you can get from any Inland Revenue Enquiry Centre, Tax Office or Inland Revenue (National Insurance Contributions) office. Addresses are in your local telephone book under "Inland Revenue". Most offices are open to the public from 8:30am to 5:00pm, Monday to Friday, and some are also open outside these hours.

Your library or Citizens Advice Bureau may also have copies of our leaflets.

You can also get most of our leaflets

  • by calling our Orderline on 0845 9000 404 between 8:00am and 10:00pm, seven days a week (except Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New year's Day)
  • by fax on 0845 9000 604
  • on the internet at www.inlandrevenue.gov.uk
  • by writing to

    PO Box 37
    St Austell
    Cornwall
    PL25 5YN.

When our offices are closed, you can get general advice on tax credits by calling our Helpline, in the evenings or at weekends, on

In Great Britain 0845 300 3900 (textphone 0845 300 3909) In Northern Ireland 0845 603 2000 (textphone 0845 607 6078)

These notes are for guidance only and reflect the position at the time of writing.

They do not affect any right of appeal.

Issued by

Inland Revenue Marketing and Communications
March 2004

© Crown Copyright 2003

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