Call for Tax Credit overpayments over 4 years old to be written-off

Citizens Advice are starting a national campaign for all Tax Credit overpayments over 4 years old to be written-off. Today, Tax Credit Casualties have issued the Media Release shown below.

What can you do to help? Just forward this media release to your local newspapers - these are the papers that we don't have on our list. The more publicity we can generate, the more chance we have of succeeding. This is YOUR campaign, and it's important that everyone join in if we are going to be successful.

Please also send a copy to your MP - we aren't allowed to 'spam' them, but you, as their constituents, can make them aware of things! Let's - every one of us - do what we can to get this vile system changed!Thanks.Tax Credit Casualties.

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The latest Tax Credit statistics, quietly released by HMRC, show a shock increase of overpayment bills for poverty stricken families. The official figures for 2007/08 show that over £940 million will be clawed back from almost 1.34 million of the UK's poorest families, plunging them even deeper below the poverty line.

One in five Tax Credit claims are now overpaid each year, leaving struggling families in dispair about how they are going to survive when HMRC claw back the money. Once again, a measure that was supposed to bring millions of children out of poverty is having exactly the opposite effect, as the very poorest families struggle to repay their Government imposed debt.

Citizens Advice is calling for old tax credit debts, dating back more than four years, to be written-off. It is taking part in a national campaign to ask the Government to wipe the slate clean, reduce hardship for families on low incomes and restore confidence in the system.

The award-winning voluntary organization Tax Credit Casualties (TCC) have campaigned for an overpayment amnesty since 2005, and welcomes the call by Citizens Advice for all tax credit overpayment bills, served to honest claimants during 2003-05, to be written-off.

Despite the good intentions behind the Tax Credit system, TCC are deeply concerned about the hardship and distress caused by the recovery of Tax Credits year on year since the scheme began in 2003, with claimant poverty compounded by the recession. Non-fraudulent overpayments must be written off.

It damages public confidence in our leaders when MPs defend excessive expenses, “home-flips” and mortgage irregularities as 'accidents' whilst ordinary, hardworking citizens suffer grave injustices in the “guilty until proven innocent” culture the Treasury adopts towards overpayment victims. Without an Amnesty, costly overpayment disputes will continue to swamp HM Revenue and Customs indefinitely. Enforced recovery is neither just nor economical.

The public has lost confidence in tax credits, and trust must be restored. Recent reports suggest that a massive £4.24 billion available to Tax Credit claimants is not collected each year – more than enough to fund a full write-off. Costs saved in pursuing the innocently indebted can be redirected to system overhaul. A reliable system will restore public confidence far better than costly campaigns to promote take-up.

HMRC has seen huge data losses, radical structural reorganization, and a huge backlog of unopened post and complaints. Chasing the poorest families to recover non-fraudulent overpayments only detracts from urgent work in creating a safer, fairer system.

Parliamentary Ombudsman Ann Abraham recommended a write-off all overpayments resulting from official errors, something the Government has continually ignored.

This call has been backed by the Child Poverty Action Group, Royal College of Nursing, Low Incomes Tax Reform Group and cross-party MPs. UNISON has supported Motion 100 urging a Government amnesty on the claw back of overpaid Tax Credits. The two-way link between poverty and mental health cannot be ignored, with poverty and mental distress bringing huge social and welfare costs.

Please support Citizens Advice and Tax Credit Casualties in this campaign for a write off of non-fradulent overpayments. The poorest families in the UK need this Amnesty.

Urgently.

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