Tax credit reduction
19. Miss E complains HMRC reduced her tax credits, despite her providing it with evidence of her childcare costs. Miss E tells us that in response to HMRC’s request for evidence of her childcare costs, she sent HMRC a letter along with a breakdown of the childcare costs on 20 June 2017.
20. We understand HMRC wrote to Miss E on 8 August 2017 with the decision to remove her childcare costs, a change of entitlement decision which in turn meant she had been overpaid £3,701.23. The letter also explained that Miss E had 30 days to request a MR of the decision. HMRC also wrote to Miss E on 10 August 2017 with the 2016-2017 award notice. We understand Miss E says that she did not receive these letters because she no longer resided at the property.
21. Miss E was able to request an MR from 8 August 2017, and that the 30-day window to submit an MR started from that date. We can see Miss E submitted her request on 5 October 2018, more than 30 days after the deadline has passed.
22. Miss E tells us that she believes HMRC’s decision to change her entitlement to credits is wrong and she provided evidence that proves she was entitled to the credits it reduced. As such, requesting an MR and following the statutory appeals process was the right route for her to take to get the change of entitlement decision and, by extension, the removal of overpayment she is looking for.
23. The Parliamentary Commissioner Act 1967 tells us that we cannot consider any matters where someone has or had a legal route available to them and it is or was reasonable for them to pursue it to get the outcome they want. In Miss E’s case, she had a statutory appeal route open to her, and it would have been reasonable for her to have pursued that route to achieve the change of decision that she was looking for, which is specifically what that process is set up to achieve.
24. We cannot give a view as to whether she was entitled in law to the tax credits in question, but an appeal via MR and then to a tribunal could have resolved that question. We can see Miss E recognised this was the appropriate route to pursue her concerns, as she did submit a request for MR. With this in mind, we cannot give any view on HMRC’s decision that Miss E was not entitled to the tax credits in question.
25. Miss E also complains that when she did try and exercise her MR rights, HMRC would not accept her application because it was made outside of the relevant time limit. We have considered whether HMRC acted in line with applicable guidance and standards in its handling of her request for MR.
26. We understand Miss E says she was unaware of HMRC’s decision to reduce her child tax credits because she did not receive the correspondence HMRC sent its decision and her MR rights in August 2017.
27. HMRC’s responsibilities are set out in its ‘Code of Practice 26’ (COP26). COP 26 says that a claimant can ask HMRC to look at its decision again by way of MR, but this request must be made within 30 days of receiving the decision notice. COP 26 also says that if a claimant has good reason, they can be given more time than the standard 30 days, but HMRC cannot accept a request dated 13 months or more after the date of the decision.
28. HMRC’s ‘Tax Credit Manual’ sets out HMRC must review a decision if a written application which identifies the application and the decision in question is received within 30 days of the date of the decision, or where the application is received within a longer period as allowed under section 21B of the Tax Credits Act 2002 (the Act).
29. Section 21B of the Act states:
‘If a request for a Mandatory Reconsideration has not been made within the 30-day time limit as per s21A, s21B provides that HMRC may extend the time limit if all of the following conditions are met: • The person seeking the review has applied for an extension; and • The application explains why the extension is sought; and • The application is made within 13 months of the date of the decision; and • HMRC are satisfied that due to special circumstances it was not possible for the Mandatory Reconsideration request to have been made within 30 days; and • HMRC are satisfied that it is reasonable in all the circumstances to grant the extension.
When a claimant requests an extension to the time limit on s21A they must provide details of the special circumstances for our consideration.’
30. The Act sets out that all the above criteria must be met. We can see HMRC acted in line with its responsibilities set out in the Tax Credit Manual and in the Act in concluding it was unable to put the absolute time limit aside as Miss E submitted her MR request after the 13 months had passed.
31. We understand Miss E believes HMRC did not act in line with the Manual because she did not have access to her post and therefore HMRC should put aside the time limit. We can see this was clearly a very stressful and concerning time for Miss E, and she has been open with us about the challenging and upsetting reasons as to why she was unable to access post at her address at that time. We have not seen anything within HMRC’s guidance which indicates it can put the time limit aside on that basis.
32. There is a responsibility on claimants under COP26 to give HMRC ‘[…] accurate, complete and up-to-date information […]. We understand that Miss E did not inform HMRC that her postal address had changed and that she could not access any post at her previous address, so we have not seen anything to suggest HMRC made mistakes which led to her missing the opportunity to request an MR within the 30-day timeframe, or within the 13 month extended timeframe for exceptional circumstances.
33. With this in mind, we have decided to take no further action with Miss E’s complaint. We understand this has been a difficult and distressing time for Miss E, and we acknowledge the emotional toll this situation has clearly had on her. We know that she remains very frustrated and feels the outcome of her complaint to HMRC is unfair, so we hope the explanations above are clear and helpful in setting out how we reached our views here.