"Madam, you are not overpaid"

A scary moment when finding out that the tax office paid me my tax credits twice a week for 3 weeks in a row. The payment should be once a week. So, I instantly guessed that they would soon demand  me to repay what they had overpaid. Some years ago, a girl in my neighbourhood had to pay back a huge amount of tax credit money to the Inland Revenue because of their miscalculation, you see. This poor girl had to take a day off work, and drive all the way to the nearest tax office to show all sorts of papers regarding to her income and tax credits, when she had done nothing wrong.

So, I phoned the tax credit helpline this morning to express my concern, and asked a lady to check my record. She confirmed that the payments were made twice weekly recently, and also explained these things to me:

• They usually pay straight after each assessment as a one-off payment before the regular weekly payment starts. (Not a bonus.)
• There was a little amount that they had owed me from the previous financial year, which was paid separately from the regular payment.

In April, I phoned to let them know my new circumstances. So, they assessed my case, and paid what they had owed me, and also made a customary one-off payment just before the first regular payment.
Then, a week later, I completed an annual renewal of my tax credits on the phone, which I do every year. They re-assessed my case and made another one-off payment while continuing the regular payments.

So, in total, they made 3 one-ff payments within 3 weeks.

It was a huge relief to hear that I was not overpaid. Now I can throw all the tax office related paper in a folder, and put it away out of my sight until... next April.