{"id":319062,"date":"2025-12-16T13:03:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T13:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/319062\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T13:03:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T13:03:10","slug":"hmrc-telling-state-pensioners-to-spend-3000-after-already-working-for-40-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/319062\/","title":{"rendered":"HMRC telling state pensioners to spend \u00a33,000 ‘after already working for 40 years’"},"content":{"rendered":"

“I was in a scheme which was contracted out, so I am aware that this results in a smaller pension.”\"DWPDWP tells state pensioners to spend \u00a33,000 ‘after already working for 40 years’<\/p>\n

State pensioners have hit out after being told to spend \u00a33,000 to boost their state pension – when they had already worked for 40 years.<\/p>\n

One retiree wrote into the Telegraph and said: “I worked continuously from 1970 to when I retired at 55 in 2010. I therefore have over 40 years of National Insurance contributions and my state pension has been paid to me since May 2020.<\/p>\n

“Well before this date I obtained an online state pension forecast, and was surprised that I had to make even more NI contributions to increase my pension to the maximum available to me. I was in a scheme which was contracted out, so I am aware that this results in a smaller pension.”<\/p>\n

READ MORE Premium Bonds holders urged to consider withdrawing cash from NS&I<\/a><\/p>\n

The retiree, Howard, added: “After several telephone calls giving me vague answers, I was told to make the maximum of four years\u2019 NI contributions for the years 2016 to 2020, which I did.<\/p>\n

“I have, therefore, paid just short of \u00a33,000 voluntarily.” He fumed: “Have I been duped into paying additional NI contributions, despite having paid in for over 40 years?<\/p>\n

“I have 41 years of contributions, plus four years which I was told to buy \u2013 and yet my state pension is still only just over \u00a3200 per week.”<\/p>\n

In response, Charlene Young, a personal finance expert, responded to the Telegraph reader’s query.<\/p>\n

Ms Young advised: “I don\u2019t have the full information, but based on what I\u2019ve read I don\u2019t think claiming a refund will put you in a better position.”<\/p>\n

Buying the full years\u2019 worth of top-ups for 2019-20 would have cost someone around \u00a3825 and could have boosted their starting pension by roughly \u00a3260 a year.<\/p>\n

It takes around three to four years after claiming the state pension for you to \u201cbreak even\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ms Young said: “That said, if HMRC accepted a refund request and it was going to reduce your state pension, they\u2019d write to you to outline the reduction and ask for your permission to proceed before doing so.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“I was in a scheme which was contracted out, so I am aware that this results in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319063,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[84,2215,4176,2218,4174,4175,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-319062","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-dwp","10":"tag-finance","11":"tag-hmrc","12":"tag-personal-finance","13":"tag-personalfinance","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}