Centrelink wants me to pay money back, but I haven't been overpaid?

• 

  onlyletters on 24/03/2014 - 15:17

  Write them a letter and attach your group certificate.

  If you sold anything online, this is also considered income and will also need to be declared.

  • 

    leeroys_dad on 25/03/2014 - 14:29

    not if it's a hobby AFAIK?

• 

  Smulder on 24/03/2014 - 16:08

  +3

  I don't believe there is a cut-off or minimum threshold before you need to report any income to CenterLink. In fact, from their website:

  "If you are receiving Youth Allowance and you are working, you must report your employment income to us every fortnight, even if your income is zero."

  Given that you failed to report your income which is a condition of receiving the payment, they no doubt have the right to recover it and issue a fine. For all they know, you had other income which you also did not report.

  Your best bet would be to talk the person looking after your case and explain the situation and hope they are feeling lenient.

• 

  [Deactivated] on 24/03/2014 - 18:18

  +7

  I find this part odd:

  i got an email from Centrelink saying I no longer need to declare income

  I've never heard of Centrelink notifying people that they 'no longer need to declare income'. Perhaps you mean they told you that you don't need to report for X amount of time? They always want to know ANY change of income or circumstances, even if your income falls well below any threshholds and will not affect your payment.

  Just go into a branch and explain your side of the situation. No-one here will be able to give you 100% reliable advice. Centrelink, in my experience, are pretty good… they will try to help you in an honest way, they aren't trying to scam money back off people unfairly. They will look into it and if they're wrong, they'll admit it… but I think you need to be prepared for the very real likelihood that you need to pay back some of this money, given that you had an income for a period of that time and never reported it.

  Do you still have that email they sent you?

• 

  shaybisc on 24/03/2014 - 18:30

  +3

  "I got an email from Centrelink saying I no longer need to declare income"

  That sounds unlikely. Have you got the email?

  Ask to see the calculation of the overpayment. This should be included in the letter of demand or whatever they call it. Then take that to Welfare Rights and ask them to see if it's accurate.

  According to the Personal Income Test for Youth Allowance I just looked up you don't have an overpayment at $150 before tax per week.

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  Dumax on 24/03/2014 - 18:42

  I do believe you about the not having to declare part - because if you had to declare but didn't - they would of suspended your payment a long time ago (you probably can't even miss a single one). If the OP wasn't employed - then I'd imagine that he wouldn't have to declare.

  Perhaps it wasn't made clear to you. You will have to pay back all you were overpaid! So if you weren't overpaid anything - then you won't be forced to pay anything back.

  • 

    [Deactivated] on 24/03/2014 - 19:00

    +2

    because if you had to declare but didn't - they would of suspended your payment a long time ago (you probably can't even miss a single one)

    Not always. If you fail to report on time, then your payment will be suspended immediately. If you do not declare a change of income or circumstances, it can take weeks or months for them to realise and chase you up for it.

    I was on Newstart during uni, declaring every payslip to them fortnightly. After graduating, I quit that part time job and found a job in my profession. However, since it was interstate, there were a number of weeks between actually being given the job and actually commencing work. I'd declared to Centrelink that I'd been given that new job, and told them my new salary. What I failed to tell them was that I wasn't going to be starting for a few more weeks.

    A couple of months later (possibly longer), I got a letter from Centrelink asking for X amount to be paid back to them because I'd been overpaid according to them. All I had to do was forward proof of when I actually commenced work, and explained to them that I'd jumped the gun and told them the date I was offered the job rather than the date I started earning from them.

    Consequently, I didn't have to pay anything back (as I was unemployed for that period), but it did take them quite a while to pick up on the apparent error.

• 

  grasstown on 24/03/2014 - 19:19

  +1

  It's usual to do it years later. The system is set up as a trust system, the payment are handed out without thorough checks so that the most vulnerable members of the community are fed, sheltered etc. and they come down hard on those who don't declare.

  It will really depend on your obligations, but if it made no real difference you could be ok. Not sure if you got to hold some other benefit, such as a concession card etc, that you wouldn't have got had you declared.

• 

  JR63 on 24/03/2014 - 19:46

  +7

  I got a letter from them saying:

  "As your circumstances have changed, you are no longer required to report every two weeks to get paid unless you start working again. If you start working again you must notify us within 14 days."

  So they do say you don't need to declare income, unless you start working again (which is expected).

  Also, from memory, before July 2012, the personal income test threshold for youth allowance was $236/fortnight (before your payments were affected), not the $405/fortnight it is now.

  Assuming you were under those rules, then if you were earning $150/week, that's $300/fortnight so you were over the personal income threshold and your youth allowance would've been affected (decreasing the amount of YA you would've received).

• 

  The Batman on 24/03/2014 - 21:13

  +3

  They would never say you are no longer required to declare income. They may, however, say that you are no longer required to report - this does not absolve you from your legal obligation to notify them of any changes to your circumstances. In other words, if you were required to report fortnightly, they may take you off this reporting requirement and assume no changes will be made to your circumstances until you tell them about it. You are ALWAYS required to notify them of any changes to your circumstances.

  They will calculate how much you were over paid, based on what you were paid and how much you earned during the period you were working. The 10% is not a fine, it's a debt recovery fee, basically the cost of them having to recover this debt from you.

  They are doing this now because sometimes these things take years to discover, given the amount of 'customers' they have and all the complexities of inter-related systems with the ATO etc.

  It is a civil debt, so you just arrange with them about how much you can repay each period. If you are still eligible for benefits, you can choose to have the debt deducted from your fortnightly payments.

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  [Deactivated] on 25/03/2014 - 08:36

  +2

  What people here are saying about declaring income if your circumstances change is correct. If you were in fact overpaid, you will be required to pay this back. If you disagree with the amount of money they say you were overpaid (ie you think they have calculated it incorrectly), you can seek a review - actually there are a couple of levels of review you can go through. But if you just don't want to pay the money, the review will not help you. It looks at the facts.

  If you do believe you weren't overpaid and have an explanation as to why, contact Centrelink and tell them your explanation and ask for the review. Simply not understanding the meaning of the letter they sent you about not having to report any longer will not be enough (I am assuming that this is the likely occurrance) - you were still overpaid and you will need to pay it back.

  Having a debt to Centrelink isn't the end of the world, it won't preclude you from being eligible for other payments. So don't put it off. You should be able to make a payment arrangement if it comes to that.

  It is quite common for these things to come up years later. They can't audit everyone all the time. It's annoying but common.

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  SlickMick on 25/03/2014 - 08:51

  -6

  I feel for you. My wife was receiving payments from centrelink (family part A or something) then after a while they decided that they'd been paying her too much and wanted a refund. The little bit they gave was nowhere near as significant as the lump sum they wanted refunded. We told them to shove their payments.
  I can't imagine the bureaucracy that goes on there. It would be interesting to know just how many people they've "un-helped".

  • 

    [Deactivated] on 25/03/2014 - 13:14

    +7

    Attitudes like that make me really sad. We're such a privileged, lucky country, yet so many people take government support for granted. Take a look at other countries where there is zero financial support for people that need it.

    The little bit they gave was nowhere near as significant as the lump sum they wanted refunded.

    That's such an illogical way to look at it. How much money was your wife given in total over the whole period? How much of THAT TOTAL did Centrelink want back? In the end, she still got some financial benefits. If your attitude is for them to shove their payments, how about you refund the entirety of the money they paid your wife? Would you prefer that?

    I certainly hope they continue chasing you for that money.

    • 

      SlickMick on 27/03/2014 - 00:03

      -3

      Chase? They got their money. And I told them to not bother giving any more, because all the money they'd given over the years was spent, and I had to dig deep to pay a big bill I wasn't expecting.
      I'm all for hand-outs, but not if they're going to want it back unexpectedly in a lump sum.

      • 

        [Deactivated] on 27/03/2014 - 08:23

        +2

        You can make payment arrangements, you shouldn't have had to pay it in a big lump sum.

      • 

        [Deactivated] on 27/03/2014 - 14:48

        Did you ask if you could pay it back in installments? As far as I'm aware, that is always an option. That's quite bad if they didn't offer that option to you. I agree that paying back a lump sum would be tough for a lot of people (especially those who have needed benefits to get by in the recent past, too, which they would know about in your wife's case).

• 

  jimbobaus on 27/03/2014 - 00:06

  Youth allowance in 2010 was $60 per fortnight
  so you earned $240 over your allowable amount without declaration.

  On your form you would of been asked if you worked and you should of declared the income.
  They would of got the final figure from the ATO so sadly you are stuffed and will have to pay it.

  How do i know?
  I got stung the same way, i paid $50 a week for ages (direct debit from my bank) and its finally gone.
  If you do nothing, they will just take any tax refunds you get in the future until the debt is paid

  • 

    Geewhizz on 28/03/2014 - 08:33

    +2

    Youth allowance in 2010 was $60 per fortnight

    What I think was meant by this was the amount allowed to be earned before it affected payments was $60 per fortnight. This however varies depending on whether the recipient is a student or a job seeker.

    Does anyone know if they will try to make me pay back the entire year of youth allowance, which will be substantial like $7000 or something?

    You won't be made to repay the entire year's allowance, just any overpayment that occurred as a result of your not reporting (plus the 10 per cent.) If your assumptions about the amount you were allowed to earn are correct this will only be a small amount anyway. BUT as previously mentioned, your allowable income before any deductions would have depended on whether you were a job seeker or a student.

    But now they seem to want to punish me purely for not having reported my income at that time.

    Not really. you were supposed to have reported income and didn't do so. Unfortunately you don't get to pick and choose whether you will or won't notify them of a change to your circumstances - "you don't need need to report unless your circumstances change" is how those letters have been worded for a very long time, well before 2010. Your circumstances changed, (and clearly would have affected your payments, or you wouldn't be receiving a debt-recovery call,) yet you didn't let them know.

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  kimmik on 14/05/2014 - 14:03

  Jasrulz and Dumax were spot on.

  Very fair system it turned out to be, it was just a slightly vague conversation from centrelink that made me post here initially.

  Turns out i owe very little as i expected, and they offered me a few ways to gradually pay it back, or just lump sum (which is my preference).

  Now people in similar situations as me will know what to expect.