Examination of Witnesses (Questions 300
- 303)
WEDNESDAY 25 JANUARY 2006
MR IAN
LAWRENCE AND
MS LYNNE
WALLACE
Q300 Jim Cousins: So it is a political
view?
Mr Lawrence: Yes.
Q301 Ms Keeble: Apparently the Pre-Budget
Report said that, starting early in 2007, HMRC would contact key
groups of tax credit recipients to collect up-to-date income information
before the start of the new tax year. Do you think that is feasible
and, in addition, how would your members feel about contacting
people before some of the issues around overpayments and such
have been resolved and the new system is properly bedded down?
Mr Lawrence: There are already
pilot schemes going on on things like overpayment recovery. Whilst,
again, we have not had official feedback on these, we do know
the feedback is mixed and if you do not try the pilot you do not
get to understand what is needed. Again, as a concept we very
much welcome HMRC engaging with user groups, claimants' groups
and the like but, of course, I very much welcome the idea of them
consulting with us too as our members have a stake in all this.
I think good time would be spent if we had the high level discourse
with TCO management that we are looking for and I think that needs
to be done.
Q302 Ms Keeble: Do your members understand
those forms that come out?
Mr Lawrence: The award notices?
No, not to a level that I think they would want to.
Ms Keeble: That is reassuring. Thank
you.
Q303 Chairman: You very kindly offered
us some further information. We are coming to the end of our inquiry
so if you were able to do that reasonably quickly we would be
grateful.
Mr Lawrence: I hope colleagues
have made a note of all the promises I have made.
Chairman: Our Clerk can help you on that.
If you were able to supply us with any more information we could,
of course, take that into account before we come to framing our
recommendations. In the meantime, on behalf of the Select Committee,
I would like to thank you and your assistant for coming here today
and helping us.
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