I've seen a fair few complaints against HMRC in my time working for Citizens Advice and one of the local MPs and this doesn't surprise me given how out of sync their data display systems are.
I mean obviously they've got most of the data they need from employers and self-completed tax returns, they get this from most people on time and you would have thought it would be a relatively simple matter of this data being inputed and then tax and national insurance being calculated automatically and then the tax payer informed.
I mean that's a basic part of a contract: the tax payer agrees to submit the correct data and HMRC agree to calculate the correct amount which the tax payer, as you might expect, agrees to pay.
Part of this contract offered by the HMRC is keeping track of National Insurance contributions which go towards the good old state pension.
But I checked my NI contributions record recently and nothing quite adds up!
If I look at my record I can see the year on year breakdown, and if I count the total of full years up I get to 25 full years.
This means I should have another 10 years of full contributions to make until I get to the maximum amount of 35 years worth contributions.
But then I also get this....
This format of display is telling me I have to make another 12 years of contributions...
Based on the fact that I have to divide £147.05 by 23 to get £6.39 which then * by 35 = £223 which is the closet to the max I could get.
Hence the system is showing me I have only made contributions of 23 years, but elsewhere it tells me i've made contributions of 25 years.
Contracted Out...?
I know that some of those years could have been 'contracted out', but if this is the case why are they showing up as 'full years' on the system in any form of display.
It's just raggedy as hell...
And then what about those undecided years...
The two during Covid when I received NO government funds at all, like they haven't decided that yet...? I need to follow up on that, I know my income was way down, but I sure as hell would have earned at least £7K a year for one of those years, the minimum you need to earn to contribute during those years!
And then I can't believe they can't tell me my accounting situation for the last tax year already. I submitted that data a full FIVE MONTHS ago, and still nothing.
HMRC could do better!
It's a terrible state of affairs, and it's a warning to everyone to be ahead of the game when it comes to challenging stuff.... they are so slow, so if you are gonna challenge give yourself AT LEAST 6 months, ideally 12 months to chase up this faltering behemoth.
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