In 2006 my husband (34) had a heart attack and his second heart surgery.
He was a qualified landscaper and we had our own business. He was unable to work for a significant period of time.
On top of that our son (11) was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes (that was a shock because there was no type 1 diabetes in the family at the time).
We sold our house to stay above the debts and moved interstate for a fresh start. During the move our electronic records (database) were damaged and we could not access computer data containing all our electronic business records.
We had printouts of some things but most was done electronically.
We advised the tax office we would not be able to submit the tax return for the business for 2006 as we didn't have all our records and didn't want to be charged with fraud because we made a mistake.
Quite frankly my husband only worked a few months of that year so it wouldn't have been much of a tax return anyway.
Centrelink then decided we were required to pay back the $20,000 we received as parenting payment over the year of difficulty because the tax return was not submitted and it was considered we had been overpaid.
I believe they would have actually had to give us more rather than paying back if the tax return had been done but that's another story.
As if life wasn't stressful enough.
Although I don't think it was fair and I am not someone the Government should be targeting as a scammer, I arranged a payment plan so that any tax refunds I received went straight back onto the debt.
I also did to receive any more handouts due to principle and I didn't trust the Government to do it right.
After years and years of paying off this debt and missing out on my tax refunds the debt has hardly moved (interest was supposed to be frozen). There is no consistency with the amounts outstanding and now I get a letter saying I still owe them over $11,000 required immediately after nearly 10 years.
You are kidding me.
I am in financial stress as it is, as a single mum now and having this inaccurate and unfair debt thrusted upon me is extremely frustrating and upsetting.
Surely the bloody debt is paid off by now, it was nearly 10 years ago people but how do you fight this.
The Government keeps changing their systems and I can't access all payments made over this period of time to prove what has been done.
All I want is for this debt to go away, I don't owe the Government anything, in fact they probably owe me but I am not putting my hand out ever again.
Disclaimer: I am not sure if the dates are accurate above because I don't have all the information with me.
Interesting how I don't get a record of all the payments made on the account, just a random letter and nothing to substantiate why I still owe that amount.
I can only see 'some' payments made if I log into my tax account but I definitely cannot see why the amount keeps going up and up instead of down. It should be NIL by now.