War rages on with HMRC

Henry Ward Beecher

The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't.

-Henry Ward Beecher, American Clergyman

Occasionally I discuss an ongoing problem on the #psychologysaturday posts. My Working Tax Credits were stopped a good 18 months ago and since then I've been trying to find out why this is and what I should do about it. I've heard plenty of conflicting information, confused further by my inability to remember it all. This is due to the memory difficulties I have, which made me eligible for the benefits in the first place.

Inhale.

I've recently been working with a Welfare Rights officer called TJ, who has helped me to gain information from HMRC about my case. She requested a transcript of all the calls I made, and my mother made, to the department. I received some CDs containing recordings of the calls, and from this we've been able to hear what has been said in the numerous conversations.

I passed this over to TJ, who has listened to them. She has written a 1300-word complaint letter to HMRC. I'm not going to recite the whole thing, but it lists out all of the numerous mistakes HMRC have made, mainly being their complete inability to grasp that the short term memory difficulties a) made me eligible for DLA and hence eligible for WTC, and b) mean that I wouldn't have understood their procedures for DLA moving to PIP and how this affects WTC. The letter also asks for a back-dated reinstatement of WTC and compensation. It's a brilliant letter from someone who knows how to illustrate a problem and how to ask for what is needed- 2 things that, due to my difficulties, are way over my head.

Fingers crossed. It makes me think back to a few months ago when I met with a Welfare Rights officer at a different office in Oldham, who sent me out of the door empty handed suggesting I ask my employers for more hours. It shows that, like in many government departments, it's the luck of the draw as to whether you get someone who knows how to help you and puts in the effort to make things happen, or whether you get a jobsworth who puts in the minimum effort and sends you out with no further progress. And, I might add, completely misinforms you and advises you to look for more work.

But it's progress. It's a lot better.

Oh, also, I had mentioned that HMRC had sent my overpayment to a debt recovery company. I'd asked them to put the case on hold while Citizen's Advice looked into it, but more recently (after numerous extensions to the deadline) I recently mentioned to them that the overpayment was caused because of DLA and PIP, and being in receipt of them due to memory difficulties, which is a vulnerability on my part. Due to this, they weren't comfortable handling this case so threw it back to HMRC again. I haven't heard back about this overpayment from either the debt recovery company nor HMRC, so it's possible that this has been cancelled.

Perseverance, it seems, also pays off.