Asked by: Ruth George (Labour - High Peak)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many people with cases of tax credit overpayment are (a) having and (b) not having deductions made from an ongoing tax credit claim.
Answered by Jesse Norman
HMRC’s tax credits system does not contain readily available information on the number of people with cases of tax credit overpayment that are (a) having and (b) not having deductions made from an ongoing tax credit claim. Estimates could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Ruth George (Labour - High Peak)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much the Valuation Office Agency budgeted for appeals against revaluations of business rate liabilities in each financial year since 2010-11; and how much of that budget was spent in each of those years.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The Valuation Office Agency does not hold data broken down in this way. The combined costs of delivering work on Business Rates and Council Tax, as published each year in the Agency’s Annual Report and Accounts, are set out below:
Business Rates and Council Tax | Expenditure £m |
2010-11 | 156.8 |
2011-12 | 160.5 |
2012-13 | 150.6 |
2013-14 | 152.3 |
2014-15 | 150.4 |
2015-16 | 169.3 |
2016-17 | 167.7 |
2017-18 | 157.6 |
2018-19 | 158.0 |
Asked by: Ruth George (Labour - High Peak)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether his Department plans to undertake a review of the business taxation system.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The Government has no plans at present to review business taxation.
All aspects of the tax system are kept under review and are subject to change through the annual Budget, in the context of the wider public finances, with any future changes to the tax system being announced through this process.
Asked by: Ruth George (Labour - High Peak)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 8 May 2019 to Question 249940, whether the tax credit debt written off in 2011-12 as part of the Older Inactive Debts Policy was included in the figure for pre-2011-12 debt.
Answered by Elizabeth Truss
The tax credit debt written off in 2011-12 as part of the Older Inactive Debts Policy is not included in the pre-2011-12 debt figure of 16% provided in the Answer of 8 May 2019 to Question 249940.
Asked by: Ruth George (Labour - High Peak)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many claimants have disputed a recovery of tax credit overpayment using (a) form TC846 and (b) another means of raising a dispute in each of the last five years.
Answered by Elizabeth Truss
HMRC does not record data on the breakdown of the source of the receipt (TC846, paper, iform, other) so the information requested is not available.
Asked by: Ruth George (Labour - High Peak)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what proportion of disputes of tax credit overpayments have (a) been written off and not collected, (b) been reduced and (c) proceeded to collection in full in each of the last five years.
Answered by Elizabeth Truss
HMRC does not record data broken down to this level of detail so the information requested is not readily available and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Ruth George (Labour - High Peak)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of the number of people claiming tax credits who have an overpayment in the latest period for which figures are available.
Answered by Elizabeth Truss
I refer the hon. Member to the reply that I gave her on 11 January 2019, UIN: 206456. Updated estimates will be published in Summer 2019.
Asked by: Ruth George (Labour - High Peak)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what proportion of the £6.9 billion of tax credit debt has been held by HMRC (a) for more than seven years, (b) between two and seven years and (c) less than two years.
Answered by Elizabeth Truss
The £6.9 billion of tax credit debt in 2017/18 is net £0.3billion of debt that was transferred to DWP. A breakdown of the age of tax credits debt is only readily available on the gross debt estimate of £7.2 billion. This shows that (a) 16 per cent relates to the 2010-11 award year or older, (b) 52 per cent relates to award years between 2011/12 to 2015/16, and (c) 29 per cent relates to the 2016/17 award year or after.
Asked by: Ruth George (Labour - High Peak)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many people claiming (a) working tax credits and (b) child tax credits have received overpayments in each year of the last 10 years.
Answered by Elizabeth Truss
Information on the number of claimants in receipt of Working Tax Credits and Child Tax Credits who have received overpayments in the last ten years are published in HMRCs Child and Working Tax Credits statistics: finalised annual awards, supplement on payments 2016-2017, published on 28th June 2018.
Data for overpayments can be found within the “Main aggregate” tab in the publication tables.
This publication can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/child-and-working-tax-credits-statistics-finalised-annual-awards-supplement-on-payments-2016-to-2017
Asked by: Ruth George (Labour - High Peak)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many people were eligible for the disabled worker element of Working Tax Credit in each of the last five years.
Answered by Elizabeth Truss
Information on the number of families and workers in receipt of disabled worker element and the number of in-work families in receipt of the disabled child element are published in our yearly finalised annual awards statistics publication at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/personal-tax-credits-statistics
The numbers of families who are eligible for, but not claiming these elements is not available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
Information on the average number of families benefitting from these elements of the Child and Working Tax Credits in the last five years for which we have finalised awards data is shown in the attached table.