30-09-2015, 04:34 PM
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Benefits shambles
This is yet another example of the incompetence of HMRC and their colleagues in the DWP.A single mum has had her child tax credits stopped because HMRC thinks her local shop is her live-in lover.
Debbie Balandis, 40, was bemused when she received a letter from HMRC saying that her £140-per-week child tax credits were being stopped because she had a new partner. She hasn't been in a relationship for years.
But when she phoned to try and sort out the mistake, she was told that her bank account showed that she was receiving regular sums of money from one Martin McColl.
"At first I was surprised – I'd never heard of anyone with that name – but suddenly I realised it was the name of the shop where I was withdrawing my money," she tells the Scottish Daily Record.
Martin McColl is the trading name of newsagent RS McColl, which houses the Post Office which pays out Debbie's benefits. But, says Debbie, despite spending £19 hanging on the phone to HMRC, she's been unable to persuade the agency to accept this.
"I begged HMRC not to leave me without a penny all because of a fictitious boyfriend," she says. "But they didn't believe me and have now stopped my benefits for supposedly having an affair with the post office."
Debbie, whose only other income is £80 a fortnight jobseeker's allowance, has a disabled 13-year-old son. She will now no longer be able to pay for his therapeutic horse-riding sessions each week.
Challenges to tax credit awards have been on the rise since the job was outsourced to US company Synnex-Concentrix last year - which is paid on the basis of how many benefits it manages to stop.
Staff have told the Independent that they are expected to open between 40 and 50 new tax-credit investigations every day, and aren't given time to check whether they make sense.
Earlier this month, HMRC Lin Homer told MPs that Concentrix had cut £100 million from the UK's tax credit bill: "£100 million that we wouldn't otherwise have collected".
However, according to the National Audit Office, the original projected savings of £285 million during 2014/15 were missed by a mile, with HMRC's own figures showing a saving of just £500,000.
Meanwhile, many people find their tax credits stopped while they attempt to prove HMRC wrong.
If you do receive such a letter - and thousands of people are, if discussion groups on Mumsnet and Gingerbread are to be believed - the most important thing is to respond immediately. HMRC says it won't do anything until it hears from you, but only if you respond within 30 days. There's more information, from Citizens Advice, here.
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