In this section:

How to claim tax credits
Help with the tax credits claim form
How to avoid common mistakes on your tax credits claim form
When your tax credits claim can be backdated
Protect your right to tax credits by claiming early
Claiming tax credits as an appointee
When can you expect your first tax credits payment?
Tax credits - rights and responsibilities

You are here:
Home >
Tax credits >
Claiming tax credits >
Tax credits - rights and responsibilities

Tax credits - rights and responsibilities

The amount of tax credits you get is based on information that you give us about your circumstances. In order to make sure you get the right amount of money and avoid an overpayment, it's important that you meet certain responsibilities, and that we meet ours too.

Our responsibilities

When we deal with your tax credits claim, we aim to:

give you the correct advice if you ask us for information
correctly work out how much you should get, based on the details you've given us
put the right information on your award notice based on information you've given us
put right any mistakes and send you a new award notice if you tell us something is wrong, missing or incomplete
record any changes in income or circumstances that you tell us about and send you a new award notice within 30 days of the date you gave it to us

Your responsibilities

When you make or renew your tax credits claim, we expect you to:

give us information that's correct, up to date and complete
tell us about any changes in your circumstances
check your award notice when you get it using the checklist provided
tell us within one month if anything on your award notice is wrong, missing or incomplete
check that the tax credit payments we pay into your account are the amount we said they'd be on your award notice, and tell us if they are not

You must tell us about some changes in circumstance within a month of them happening - these are listed on the checklist that came with your award notice. It is also best to tell us about any other changes straight away to avoid an overpayment.

Contact the Tax credit Helpline on Tel 0845 300 3900, textphone 0845 300 3909, if you need help with your award notice, for example:

you don't understand the information shown
you're not sure if we've made a mistake
you don't receive one within one month of telling us about a change in circumstance

Checking your tax credits award notice

Tax credits: how and when to tell us about changes

Writing off an overpayment

If we don't meet our responsibilities

If you meet all of your responsibilities, but we don't met ours, you won't have to pay back all of your overpayment.

For example, if you've told us about a change of circumstance, it's our responsibility to send you an updated award notice within 30 days. If you tell us about a change on 1 September, but we don't change your award until 16 October - you won't have to pay back your overpayment from 30 September.

If you don't meet your responsibilities

If we meet all of our responsibilities, but you don't meet yours, you'll have to pay back some or all of the overpayment.

For example, you tell us about a change of circumstance on 12 August. We record this information and send you a new award notice which you get on 19 August. You notice we've made a mistake, but don't tell us until 27 September. As this is more than 30 days after, you may have to pay back the overpayment up until the 27 September.

We may not ask you to pay back an overpayment if you told us about personal circumstances that meant you could not check your award notice or bank payments. For example you or a family member is seriously ill in hospital.

If we both don't meet our responsibilities

If we both don't meet our responsibilities, we will look at the circumstances involved and may write off part of the overpayment.

Contact us

You can contact our Tax Credit Helpline on Tel 0845 300 3900 or textphone 0845 300 3909, open from 8.00 am to 8.00 pm, seven days a week except Christmas Day, Boxing Day, and New Year's Day.