The Low Incomes Tax Reform Group (LITRG) is urging people to contact HMRC if they have missed the 31 July 2018 tax credits renewals deadline. The sooner you contact HMRC then the sooner they can get their tax credit payments re-started, If you are lucky, you might catch HMRC in time to renew before your payments are stopped.
The new Head of LITRG Victoria Todd said:
“We urge people to contact HMRC as soon as possible if they have missed the 31 July deadline.
“If HMRC have stopped their payments, provided they contact HMRC within 30 days of the date on their Statement of Account and renew, HMRC will process the renewal and reinstate their 2018/19 claim back to 6 April 2018.
“If someone is self-employed and does not yet have final details for the 2017/18 tax year they must give an estimate and then either confirm the estimate, or file actual figures, by 31 January 2019.”
LITRG top tips
- If someone misses this 30-day deadline, they can only renew and secure their annual entitlement for 2018/19 if they complete their renewal by 31 January 2019 and can satisfy HMRC that they had ‘good cause’ for missing both the 31 July deadline and the extra 30-day deadline.
- For the 2017/18 renewals cycle, claimants had until 31 July 2018 to renew their tax credits awards. This means that claimants who received two forms – one with a red line across it – were told to contact HMRC to renew by 31 July 2018 otherwise their claim would not be renewed and their payments would stop.
- Each year, tax credits claimants receive a renewal pack from HMRC.
- The renewals process does two things: firstly, it finalises the claim for the tax year that has just ended (2017/18) and secondly it acts as a claim for the new tax year (2018/19).
- Even if you no longer want to claim or think you are no longer entitled, if you claimed tax credits at all during the 2017/18 tax year you should have been included in the renewal exercise to finalise your claim for that year.
- If you ended your tax credit claim during 2017/18 and claimed universal credit in the same tax year, you will not receive a renewal pack as your claim for 2017/18 should already have been finalised.
- If someone has made a universal credit claim and has their tax credits award reinstated because they have renewed within 30 days of the Statement of Account or by 31 January 2019 and have good cause – HMRC will reinstate their tax credits from 6 April 2018 but it will only be awarded until the day before the universal credit claim started.
Source
Low Income Tax Reform Group https://www.litrg.org.uk/
LITRG is an initiative of the Chartered Institute of Taxation which is a charity and not part of HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) the Government department who deal with tax and tax credits.
