Adjudicator’s Office Annual Report 2008
The Adjudicator’s Office acts as a fair and unbiased referee looking into complaints about the Revenue, including the Tax Credits office. They will investigate and help to resolve complaints after the individual has exhausted the Revenue’s internal complaints procedure. The Adjudicator published her annual report for 2007/08 on 2 July 2008, which includes the following points of interest:
- 1543 new tax credits cases were taken on in 2007/08
- 1391 tax credit complaints were settled in 2007/08
- 80% of all complaints are about tax credits
- the average turnaround time from receiving the complaint to resolution was 23½ weeks
- 48% of tax credit complaints were upheld
- £142,307 in compensation was recommended to be paid by the Revenue to complainants
- £673,469 in overpayments was recommended to be written off by the Revenue
- the Revenue accepted all of the Adjudicator’s recommendations
The report reveals that action on existing complaints was put on hold until the new revised overpayments guidance, COP26, was finalised. The appendix includes three case summaries where complaints concerning overpayments going back to 2003/04 and 2004/05 were considered under the new guidance.
Revenue accounts and report
The Revenue published its 2007/08 departmental report and accounts this month, including the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General. As well as summarising recent changes and proposals, it contains some interesting new statements and statistics on tax credits:
- 157,468 compliance checks were carried out in 2007/08 (2.76% of claims)
- 1,040 penalties were imposed in 2007/08 (£750,000 total penalties)
- a new approach to penalties is to be introduced in 2008/09, where the size of the penalty will be related to the level of non-compliance and the claimant’s behaviour
- 165 cases were selected for criminal prosecutions
- 69,000 disputed overpayments were outstanding at the end of 2007/08
- an estimated 20,000 claimants are still owed £800-£1000 as a result of the ‘administrative error’ concerning overpayments (see CPAG's September 2007 e-bulletin), and the Revenue “needs to repay these amounts”.
Q&A: What was the children’s tax credit?
The children’s tax credit was an additional tax allowance for people with children, payable in the tax years 2001-02 and 2002-03 only. It is nothing to do with child tax credit and working tax credit, which were introduced on 6 April 2003. It is still possible to claim this allowance for 2002-03 until the final deadline of 31 January 2009. It has come to our attention recently that there are agencies offering assistance to claim this allowance for a fee to be deducted from any payment. It is not necessary to go through such an agency or pay any fee to claim the children’s tax credit. Anyone who paid income tax in 2002-03 and had a child under 16 living with them for all or part of that tax year and did not get the children’s tax credit included in their personal allowance at the time can contact their local tax office directly or use the form on the Revenue’s website.
