In the coming weeks, many people will receive a brown envelope from HMRC, informing them of thousands of dollars owed.
HMRC to Rectify State Pension Underpayments Affecting Women
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is notifying thousands of people, mostly women, that they are owed money as a result of a huge state pension miscalculation.
The issue particularly affects women in their 60s and 70s who received Child Benefit between 1978 and 2000. Their National Insurance credits, which add to your state pension claim if you don't work, were not properly transferred.
Until 2010, these National Insurance credits were called Home Responsibilities Protection (HRP).
It was mostly claimed by stay-at-home mothers or anyone who took time off work to care for a child or a person with a long-term disability or disease.
However, if someone received Child Benefit but failed to provide their National Insurance number on the form, their HRP credits may not have been properly transferred to their National Insurance record. As a result, the amount of state pension they receive may have changed, according to the Mirror.
An estimated 210,000 individuals may have been affected, with 60,000 of them deceased; their families are eligible to file claims for any owed funds.
Pensioners are being priorised for contact, with ministers previously claiming that the majority of those affected by the error would be reached by April next year. The typical payout is roughly £5,000, but in certain cases it can reach tens of thousands of pounds.
One woman told MoneySavingExpert.com's founder, Martin Lewis, how she was able to reclaim back a life-changing sum of £82,000.
A spokesperson for the DWP said: "The action we are taking now will correct historical underpayments made by successive governments. We are fully committed to addressing these errors, not identified under previous governments, as quickly as possible. We have set up a dedicated team and devoted significant resources towards completing this."
How to Determine If You Have Been Underpaid?
The principal rules for qualifying for a year of HRP from 1978 are:
- You must have been receiving child benefit in your own name (not that of a spouse or partner).
- Your child was under sixteen for the entire financial year in question.
- You must not have been paying the married woman’s "reduced stamp."
If you believe you have missed out, first examine your state pension and National Insurance record. For those who attained pension age after April 5, 2010, any year of HRP/credits should appear as a full year on your NI record. If not, you might have missed out.
HRP was recorded diffrently for those who reached pension age on or before April 5, 2010, therefore you must contact the NI helpline to determine whether HRP appears on your record. The Government additionally introduced an online checker tool on Gov.uk to determine whether you are eligible to submit a claim. To claim missing HRP up until March 2010, you are requiered to fill the form CF411.