A HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) oversight could mean people who have been responsible for children, or caring for those who are ill or disabled individuals, may be owed cash due to an administrative oversight. Elderly parents and caregivers are encouraged to check once more if they are missing out on a national insurance safeguard which could lead to them being under-compensated in their State Pension.
Child Benefit forms lodged prior to 2000 did not require a national insurance number, meaning the Home Responsibilities Protection (HRP) that entitled individuals were supposed to receive might have not been applied. HRP enabled parents and carers to accumulate state pension entitlement while out of work for familial caregiving duties, reports the Mirror.
If your records lack HRP, you could be owed a higher pension than the amount currently paid to you or you anticipate receiving because the scheme reduced the requisite years for claiming the benefit. HRP was succeeded by national insurance credits in 2010 for those who qualified.
Following an initial alert in December, HMRC has reiterated its call for older parents or carers who may be implicated to review their records. In a post on X it said: “If you claimed #ChildBenefit before May 2000, you may be missing Home Responsibility Protection (HRP) from your National Insurance record. Claiming now may increase your #StatePension. Complete our eligibility checker and see if you can claim.”
If you’re among those impacted by this error, you could be due approximately £5,000, with the DWP set to pay over £1 billion in back payments. HMRC is currently identifying more than 180,000 pensioners who may have been underpaid – however, it’s estimated that 43,000 of those affected have since passed away.
In such instances, their families can claim any outstanding funds.
How can I find out if I’ve been underpaid?
The primary criteria for qualifying for a year of HRP from 1978 are as follows:
-
Your child was under 16 for the whole of the financial year in question
-
You were not paying the married woman’s ‘reduced stamp’
-
You had to be receiving child benefit in your own name (not that of a spouse or partner)
You must have been receiving child benefit in your own name (not that of a spouse or partner), your child was under 16 for the entire financial year in question, and you were not paying the married woman’s ‘reduced stamp’.
If you believe you might have missed out, you should initially check your state pension and your National Insurance record. For those who reached pension age after April 5, 2010, any year of HRP/credits should appear as a complete year on your National Insurance record.
If this isn’t the case, you may have been overlooked. The Government has also developed an online checker tool on GOV.UK to help you assess your eligibility to make a claim.