CCM10750 – Penalties and Interest: Incorrect Claims – Meaning of Deliberate Error - Enquiries or Examinations Opened on or after 6 April 2008

Where an over-claim arose from an error which was the result of a Deliberate Error we will charge a penalty of 25% of the over-claim. (This text has been withheld because of exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act 2000)

An over-claim will be treated as a Deliberate Error where one of the following errors is made (This text has been withheld because of exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act 2000)

• Claiming for a fictitious child or children, or the wrong number of children.
• Claiming (on a new claim or renewal) that a child is under 1 year old when they are not .
• Claiming for child care costs when no childcare is paid for.
• Claiming (on a new claim or renewal) that a child is in full-time education when they are already working.
• Claiming to be working when the claimant is not working; or claiming to be working over 16 or 30 hours when the claimant does not work those hours, has not done so in the recent past and has no intention of doing so.
• Claiming for the disability element when the claimant is clearly not entitled.
• Understatement of income where there was no basis for the amount of income declared.
• Omission of a source of income.
• Any other wrong declarations where the information concerns the claimant’s own circumstances which they can be reasonably expected to know; for example, claiming as a single person when it was clear that a joint claim should have been submitted, such as being married with no reason to think that the claim should have been anything other than a joint claim.

See CCM10755 for examples of ‘Deliberate Error’.

(This text has been withheld because of exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act 2000)