Thousands of people were unable to meet a crucial state pension deadline earlier this month (April 5) after a government portal closed a day early. Anyone affected can expect to get a call from HMRC to make sure they don’t miss out.
The critical deadline to plug any missing National Insurance gaps between 2006 and 2018 passed at 11.59pm on Saturday. Doing this was a an option under transitional arrangements put in place when the new State Pension was introduced in 2016.
Martin Lewis had urged anyone aged 40 to 73 to check this ahead of the deadline as doing so could boost their state pension by up to hundreds of thousands. Plenty of people do not have the required 31 full National Insurance years needed to get the maximum state pension. People will often pay to plug in these gaps, an option for the past six years of their NI record.
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However, a Government mishap meant that its online service to make payments from the tax years 2006/2007 to 2020/2021 was mistakenly taken offline a day early. This meant that anyone who logged on to plug gaps on April 5, the last day to begin the process, was met with a message saying the deadline to claim had passed.
HMRC has said they will be contacting anyone who was affected to make sure they don’t miss out, although it does not yet know how long this will take. Martin Lewis has advised holding on to any proof of the problems, such as screenshots, until you have been contacted.
A HMRC spokesperson said: “We’re sorry that customers were unable to use our online service on Saturday to top up National Insurance contributions for years prior to 2021. We will contact anyone affected directly about the payments they wanted to make to ensure they don’t miss out.”
The glitch does not affect the separate Department for Work and Pensions call-back request form which remained live over the weekend. Anyone who submitted request for this on or before April 5 will get a call-back and be eligible to purchase missing years back to 2006.
While the deadline to top-up missing NI years back to 2006 has now passed after already been extended twice, this can still be done for the last six tax years.
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