jictink

Hi Mike,
My son and daughter-in-law contacted HMRC two days ago via Chat to get this sorted.
Did take a couple of attempts but fortunately they got a couple of good advisers who were also trained in making allocations.
So 2024/25 now removed and hopefully a bill will be sent.
More importantly their large payments made last September have now been allocated to their gaps and all is up to date now.
It did take another chat session on Wednesday as my daughter-in-law's was only partially sorted but all sorted now.
I know it's difficult for the advisers in the call centre and the chat option and I do sympathise with them. It hasn't been helped with Martin Lewis urging everyone aged 40 to 73 to check just in case. That clogged up the phone lines in a way that could never have been handled.
So yes I'd like it that payments from abroad could be made so much easier each year too.
Perhaps it will happen some day.
I hope you get sorted out too.

Hi Mike, Thanks for that as exactly the same issue has happened to my son and daughter-in-law. They both made large payments in September 2024 to cover gaps years - in my son's case from 2006/7 to 2022/23 and his wife's from 2006/7 to 2019/2020. He had already contacted HMRC last September to ensure that they knew which years to allocate the payments. Today I asked him to check their records as I had noticed this issue from others. Needless to say he has now found that 2024/25 is showing as full even though it wasn't one of the years to be paid as he would normally get a bill to do so. HMRC are telling others that it happened automatically as there was money sitting there unallocated as yet. So basically because HMRC still haven't allocated money that was paid 7 months ago, they now have this mess to sort out. It took 2 years to even get to this stage as their CF83 form was sent in September 2022. It's simply not good enough I'm afraid.

This web page contains an error regarding voluntary NI for those reaching State Pension Age before 6th April 2016 - ie for men born before 6th April 1951 and for women born before 6th April 1953. According to this page they can pay for voluntary contributions from 2016 to 2018 but that cannot be correct as you won't have any gaps after reaching State Pension Age. The last possible year would be 2015/16. "Pay older gaps in your record (deadline 5 April 2025) You have until 5 April 2025 to pay for gaps in your National Insurance record that were more than 6 years ago. If you’re a man born after 5 April 1951 or a woman born after 5 April 1953, then you can pay voluntary contributions to fill gaps between 2006 and 2018. If you were born before these dates, you can fill gaps between 2016 and 2018." The last sentence is totally wrong. https://www.gov.uk/voluntary-national-insurance-contributions/deadlines?

Just a pity that the guidance doesn't have a section for the 53 week tax years which come up every so often. Then it's 1 week of old and 52 weeks of new.

Thank you for your reply but I'm not quite sure I understand. First of all what I received during the year in state pension is not the same as my entitlement for the year. I am ware that for income tax purposes, the state pension is treated differently from other income where the date of receipt is what matters. With the state pension it's the date of entitlement which matters. In my case my first entitlement in the 2023/24 tax year was on the 6th April 2023 with the final entitlement on the 4th April 2024. This meant 53 weeks of entitlement. This is different to my actual payments as I'm paid 4 weekly with the last one being in the 2024/25 tax year. As to asking the DWP to confirm the amount of payment, all that they will confirm is that I am entitled to receive £xxx.xx per week. They will not give me a figure for a full tax year's entitlement. So basically the advice is to change my SA each time and supply what I know to be the correct figures even though every year it's entered incorrectly?

I’m completing my Self Assessment for 2023/24 and noticed that the amount for my State Pension has been pre-populated with the figure of 52 times my weekly state pension amount. I understand that the tax due is based on when I became entitled to receive a payment as opposed to when I did receive it. However that 52 times the weekly rate figure is wrong as I actually would be entitled to 1 week of the old rate and 51 weeks of the new rate which is the figure correctly used for my Tax Code. So am I expected to amend that to the correct figure and if so why is the correct figure not being pre-populated? Also last tax year happened to be a 53 week payment year for me so should I amend it and state that as the reason for doing so?