Toolkit

Reference materials: Tax credits 'Inside track'

Changes of circumstances

  • Changes relating to income: At the May 2009 TCCG meeting , representatives asked HMRC if they could clarify what contact centre advisers say to customers regarding changes of circumstances involving income or unemployment. HMRC stated that their call type scripts are pro-active around changes of circumstances involving end of employment or changes to income. Where redundancy is the cause of employment ending, they say their adviser would action this change of circumstances and then ask about changes to the customer's income (or childcare), aiming to capture all changes at the same time. 

In the more complicated circumstances where the customer has been laid off work - rather than been made redundant – Contact Centre advisers should be able to escalate the query internally to the Tax Credit Office (TCO) technical advice line, if appropriate. Advisers from the technical advice line will give advice based on the specific circumstances of individual cases.

Where end of employment has affected the customer's income, the helpline should explain what the customer will need to do to give HMRC their current year income i.e. add their income to date with a forecast for the rest of the year, if they wish to give one. HMRC should tell customers how to get their actual income up to the date of change, but don’t advise how they can forecast their income for the rest of the year. However, they should be told that they can ask for the figure to be updated if their circumstances change again. HMRC say the emphasis is on encouraging claimants to keep them informed as changes happen.

The pro-active questioning continues where there has been a change of income, and the adviser should ask the claimant if the change has affected any other circumstances. The script then links into the area of change affected. The link to overpayments includes scripts to cover financial difficulty due to overpayment recovery and referral routes for individual cases to be considered.

[TCCG, response 17 June 2009]

  • TC920: Representatives queried the use of form TC920 and asked for more information about the circumstances when it was sent out. HMRC stated that one of the PBR 2005 measures was to use an automatically uprated income figure to calculate provisional payments from April 2008. The TC920 asks customers to contact HMRC to give an up-to-date estimate of their income for the current year and shows the estimated income figure that HMRC will use to calculate their provisional payments from April if the customer does not contact HMRC. It also gives an estimate of their award based on that figure.

[Katie Lane, Citizens Advice, response 14 February 2008]

  • Disability element: HMRC confirmed that existing claimants must inform HMRC when they initially make a claim for DLA as well as within 3 months of DLA being awarded in order to secure backdating.

[Victoria Todd, LITRG, response 23 August 2007]

  • Change of circumstances: Representatives informed HMRC that there are still out of date message about the 3 month timescale for notifying changes on their website, in the technical manual, leaflets and other government websites. LITRG are pressing for an amnesty on overpayments caused by missing the 1 month deadline until all HMRC sources reflect fully and accurately the law.

[John Andrews, LITRG, 4 July 2007]




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