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Written question asked by Gareth Thomas (Labour) on Friday, 27 November 2020, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 1 December 2020. It was answered by Jesse Norman (Conservative) on Monday, 7 December 2020 on behalf of the Treasury.

Child Tax Credit and Working Tax Credit: Overpayments

Question

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many (a) Working Tax Credit and (b) Child Tax Credit claims in (i) total and (ii) as a percentage of total claims in each of have incurred an overpayment in each of the last five years.

Answer

The table below summarises the number of personal tax credits overpayments as a percentage of all personal tax credit claims for the most recent 5 years for which data is available. HMRC are unable to break down the figures to Working Tax Credit or Child Tax Credit because a case may involve both.

Estimated number of Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit claims and overpaid claims between 2013/14 to 2017/18

2013/14

2014/15

2015/16

2016/17

2017/18

Estimated number of Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit claims (000s)

5,564

5,406

5,271

4,988

4,600

Total number of overpaid Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit claims (000s)

1,685

1,535

1,396

1,572

1,445

Overpaid Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit awards as a % of all Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit awards

30%

28%

26%

32%

31%

Source: These figures have been taken from HMRC’s annually published Child and Working Tax Credits statistics: finalised annual awards, supplement on payments for 2013/14 – 2017/18, which can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/personal-tax-credits-statistics

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
121793
Session
2019-21
Subjects
Child tax credit Overpayments Working tax credit
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk