Sponsored by
Single mum's £3,300 tax credit nightmare
BY ALISON BELLAMY A SINGLE mum from Selby has been told she owes £3,300 in family tax credits, after the Government announced that thousands of families must pay back overpayed cash.
Sheena Shift, 33, has described her experience with HM Revenue and Customs as like "banging her head against a brick wall" and has sought the help of her local MP and Citizens Advice Bureau.
Yesterday the YEP revealed how more than 1.9 million claims were overpaid in 2004/5.
More than half a million of the overpayments were for 1,000 or more. Some families have been ordered to pay back as much as 6,750.
Ms Shift said that she had repeatedly informed Revenue and Customs about her changing circumstances, but to no avail.
The single mother first filled in the forms to claim back the credits in July 2003 after the birth of her son Harry in May that year. She returned to work full-time as a product manager in October, taking redundancy in March 2005.
Errors
She later took a part-time administrative assistant job in June of that year. "There has been a catalogue of errors, it has been a nightmare from the beginning," she said.
"In the first year they managed to pay me the childcare element of Working Tax Credit when I was not back at work. There was a period when I was working full-time when my payments were reduced from 450 a month to 2.74, and after that it was just nothing.
"I was working full-time as a product manager and then I took redundancy and went part-time locally as an administrative assistant in a local firm," she said. "It has been since then, really, that the overpayments occurred and the tax credit people have not updated my childcare costs even though I have told them."
• Have you been affected by the family tax credit fiasco? Contact Alison Bellamy, YEP newsroom, Wellington Street, Leeds, LS1 1RF on 0113 238-8917 or alison.bellamy@ypn.co.uk.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Scarborough
Tuesday 07 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: -3 C to 4 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: South east
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: -4 C to 2 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: South
