TCM0038100 - Changes - death (child): Death of a child - new claims (Info)

On the Priority 1 team you will receive new tax credits claims that are clearly marked ‘Priority 1 team’ in red on the front. These may have been issued by the Priority 1 Team or may have been referred to you from the EDM Portal via DMS.

You must initially capture the claim showing the deceased child’s or young person’s date of birth. Then, once the claim has been awarded, capture the child’s or young person’s date of death as a change of circumstances.

Note: An award of tax credits can continue for eight weeks after the date of death of a child or young person. However, where tax credit entitlement ends due to notification of Universal Credit (UC) interest and this occurs during the eight-week run-on, tax credit entitlement will end at the earlier date and the extension will no longer be applicable.

To ensure that you provide a full service to the customer you must also ensure that any queries or information has been dealt with that refer to Child Benefit.

Note: During a phone call with the customer, if they have an enquiry about tax, explain you are unable to deal with their query and transfer the call to the Needs Enhanced Support (NES) Team who will be able to help. (This content has been withheld because of exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act 2000) If you are unable to get through to the NES Team, complete the Needs Enhanced Support (NES) Handover Form, held in the Priority 1 team Controlled Access Folder, noting the customer’s preferred time for call back(This content has been withheld because of exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act 2000) . The NES Team will arrange to call the customer back.

Any correspondence you issue must be accompanied with a letter of condolence to the customer.

If the claim isn’t awarded straight away, review it daily to clear any verification failures that occur.

Note: From 6 April 2017, customers will only get the Family Element of Child Tax Credit where they are responsible for a child or children born before that date.

Note: The individual child element of Child Tax Credit will no longer be awarded for third and subsequent children or qualifying young persons in a household, born on or after 6 April 2017, unless it meets the exception criteria.

Note: All children/qualifying young persons should be added to the award. Customers will still receive the childcare and/or disability element for all children/qualifying young persons if they are entitled, even if they are not in receipt of the child element.

Note: If you are dealing with a claim where an exception marker has been applied to any of the children/young persons included in the claim or the customer is reporting a change relating to an exception contact the Exception Team (This content has been withheld because of exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act 2000) . (This content has been withheld because of exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act 2000) For how to check if the exception marker has been applied, use TCM1000314.

There is an Action Guide for this subject, select TCM0038120 to access it