Wage overpayment

[guns80]

I'm ready for yes you have to repay it posts and thats fine but apparently last month my wife was overpaid her wage by the county council. We recieved a letter telling us that her wage was overpaid by almost a third and saying her wage would be reduced accordingly for it to be repaid. Now firstly I thought if it was their error it had to be repaid in a way that suits you. Secondly this is the third time in 3 years this has happened and due to paperless wage slips ( still not sure that's legal ) my wife doesnt get regular wage slips as the website is useless and we have poor Internet connection.

The main reason I'm questioning this is that the repayment doesn't take into account tax paid as the lesser wage she should have recieved would have pushed the wife under the tax threshold. Also we would have been eligable for tax credits without the overpayment. Overall it leaves us in a worse position and its barely worth my wife working. Is there anything we can do?

[Kermit power]

If you have been demonstrably left out of pocket, then it's perfectly reasonable to expect the council to compensate you to the extent that you are no longer disadvantaged. Not sure about the legal standpoint, but the CAB would be able to tell you that.

As for tax credits though, surely they depend on annual rather than monthly earnings, don't they? There must be lots of casual workers with significant month on month variations who still qualify on the year overall?

As for the income tax, presumably a PAYE deduction has been automatically calculated based on the higher amount as the system which calculated it doesn't know the payment is an error. Can she not just point this out to here payroll department so that they can correctly calculate the adjustment? We're nowhere near the end of the tax year, so surely no need to claim it back from HMRC?

Lastly, possibly a dumb question, but how can someone be eligible for tax creditsthey pay tax?

[Eric Mc]

Some tax credits can be paid to people who are on quite reasonable pay. Although it's now been reduced, when first introduced, Child Tax Credit was payable to couples who's combined before tax income was under £58,000.

[guns80]

As for the tax I would have thought that it would be sorted at the end of the year but last time she was overpaid by well over £1k nothing happened. As for the tax credits my wife was on maternity until July and so although we were over the limit it was only just and our claim was kept open until my wife's hours settled down. The wage she was paid kept us over the limit for tax credits but if she is to get what they say she should have recieved that would put us under the limit.

I wish it was easy to contact the payroll people unfortunately no one at her school deals with payroll directly and the actual council's HR department has been outsourced with only an e-mail address for contact!

[GoneAnon]

Contact your local councillor. S/he should be able to escalate it internally and with the contractor.

[guns80]

We're going to try the union first fortunately my wife is a member of unison. But if that fails I'd never of thought of talking to our councillor. As luck would have I actually worked with her a few years back so is a good option.