29 September 2011

Tax Credits share data electronically with Housing Benefit/Council Tax Benefit

From 4 July 2011, HMRC began to electronically share tax credits award information with Local Authorities (LAs) for customers receiving Housing Benefit (HB)/Council Tax benefit (CTB).

The Housing Benefit Information Flows Programme (HBIFP), which is part of the Automated Transfers to Local Authority Systems (ATLAS) Project, has increased the amount of information that can be sent automatically to LAs.

ATLAS Phase 1 transfers tax credits award data at the earliest opportunity from HMRC. This is sent in a format that allows direct loading into local authority systems.

For tax credit customers receiving HB/CTB, ATLAS Phase 1 provides information on:

Phase 1 was successfully rolled out to all authorities on 4 July 2011.

Phase 2 is planned for 5 December 2011 and will extend ATLAS to deliver a range of DWP notifications in addition to the HMRC tax credits notifications.

You can find further details on the DWP website.