{"id":290493,"date":"2026-02-14T05:35:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T05:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/290493\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T05:35:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T05:35:11","slug":"state-pension-error-fixed-as-hmrc-says-sorry-to-800000-britons-at-risk-of-payment-shortfall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/290493\/","title":{"rendered":"State pension error fixed as HMRC says ‘sorry’ to 800,000 Britons at risk of payment shortfall"},"content":{"rendered":"

A major state pension payment error <\/a>impacting 800,000 Britons has been fixed with HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) saying “sorry” to those who received inaccurate forecasts, which analysts claim could have led to a retirement savings shortfall.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, the UK tax authority rectified a long-standing flaw in its online state pension forecast tool that had persisted for nine years, following an investigation into the service.<\/p>\n

It is understood that as many as 800,000 individuals who had previously “contracted out” of the additional state pension are due to reach pension age after April 2029.<\/p>\n

These users may have received overly optimistic forecasts, leading them to believe they would receive the maximum state pension without needing to make further contributions.<\/p>\n

\"Older<\/p>\n

HMRC has apologised for a historic state pension error <\/p>\n

| <\/p>\n

GETTY <\/p>\n

The fix came after HMRC advised users on Monday to delay checking their forecasts until February 14, following a system update designed to improve accuracy.<\/p>\n

Government ministers were first alerted to the problem back in 2017, yet it took another four years before any corrective measures were put in place.<\/p>\n

The online forecast tool had been introduced in February 2016, just two months prior to the launch of the new state pension system.<\/p>\n

By 2019, approximately 360,000 users had already been given inaccurate estimates during the tool’s first three years of operation.<\/p>\n

\"StateAre you affected by state pension age changes? | GETTY\"StateEstimated lifetime state pension payouts by area | ONS\/CHATGPT<\/p>\n

HMRC acknowledged that those reaching pension age after April 2029 were still being incorrectly informed they qualified for full payments.<\/p>\n

The contracting out arrangement, which has since been abolished, permitted millions of workers to redirect their contributions away from the State Earnings-Related Pension Scheme, known as Serps, provided they were paying into a private or workplace pension instead.<\/p>\n

Upon retirement, individuals who took this option face a reduction from their final state pension to account for those periods.<\/p>\n

The forecast tool failed to reflect these deductions, meaning affected users were wrongly told they had accumulated sufficient National Insurance contributions to qualify for the maximum payment.<\/p>\n

\"StateWhen will yoiu be impacted by the state pension increase? | AJ BELL \/ GOV.UK <\/p>\n

This left many people at risk of receiving smaller pensions than anticipated, without the chance to address any shortfall through additional contributions.<\/p>\n

Sir Steve Webb, a former pensions minister now working at consultancy LCP, warned that the error had placed people at risk of retirements “built on sand”.<\/p>\n

He added: “It is good to see that HMRC are making further updates to improve the accuracy of state pension forecasts.” <\/p>\n

An HMRC spokesman apologised for the difficulties users had experienced, confirming the update would now properly account for contracted-out periods. To qualify for the full new state pension, individuals must accumulate 35 complete years of National Insurance contributions, currently worth \u00a3230.25 weekly.<\/p>\n

HMRC has stated that affected individuals can make lump sum payments of up to \u00a3907 per missing year to top up their records.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A major state pension payment error impacting 800,000 Britons has been fixed with HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[114,268,7929,85,46,2101,5898,266,267,1003],"class_list":{"0":"post-290493","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-finance","10":"tag-hmrc","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-money","14":"tag-pensions","15":"tag-personal-finance","16":"tag-personalfinance","17":"tag-state-pension"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}