Pursuit of #TaxCredit #overpayments turns nasty as #debt #collectors #hired by @Number10gov #hound the #poorest Hundreds of thousands of Britain’s poorest people are being targeted by private debt collectors hired by 10 Downing Street after their tax credits were overpaid because of errors made by HMRC. A joint investigation by The Independent and the campaign group False Economy has uncovered the #Coalition’s increasingly forceful methods of pursuing more than 4.7 million cases of overpaid tax credits, which amount to debts of £1.6bn. The hardline stance follows pledges by Iain Duncan Smith, the Department for Work and Pensions - DWP Secretary, to bring down the benefits bill. The debt collectors hired by #HMRC phone the people they are targeting on their mobiles, send them text messages and write to them at home. Some of those targeted say they feel harassed and frightened. In at least 80 tax credit cases, assets have been seized directly. In total, HMRC made 215,144 referrals to debt collection agencies in 2013-14 to “secure direct recovery of overpaid personal tax credits”, according to data obtained through Freedom of Information requests. In many cases the overpayment is thanks to an HMRC error in calculation. The families involved are already living on very low incomes, making it impossible to pay back the accumulated sums. Most of the working families affected are among Britain’s poorest. More than half a million of the families involved have a taxable household income of less than £20,000. Of these, 118,000 earned less than £5,000. #FalseEconomy researcher Chaminda Jayanetti said: “Tax credit overpayments are the big scandal that no one is talking about. Millions of people are hit by a system that persecutes people with trumped-up demands for money they don’t have, creating heavy debts where none existed, effectively indenturing them while private debt collectors circle like sharks.”
Posted on: Fri, 30 May 2014 11:12:31 +0000
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