HMRC insists I'm useless. How do I persuade it I’m not?

[ad_1] HM Income and Customs allotted my nationwide insurance coverage (NI) quantity to a stranger who has since died. It due to this fact now insists that I'm useless and so won't course of my pension top-up request.

I’ve had this quantity since 1991 after I moved to the UK for six years to work.

In 2015 I once more took a job within the UK. At that time HMRC advised me it couldn’t discover my NI quantity on its system and insisted on issuing me with a short lived one.

I’ve been attempting on and off since 2015 to get my unique quantity again and have spent hours on maintain to HMRC. I’ve despatched letters and visited the HMRC places of work, to no avail. I used to be just lately advised I may need to attend 86 weeks for a response.

The urgency now's that I must submit my state pension forecast software, and it's distressing to be advised that I'm “deceased”.

JH County Clare, Eire

An NI quantity is meant to be for all times. It’s an important a part of trendy id and the results, if it goes astray, might embody id fraud or compromised tax and pensions standing. I’m due to this fact astounded by HMRC’s insouciance.

I requested it how this got here to be, and how one can be introduced again to life. HMRC’s response was stunning in that it managed inside 5 days to do what it had seemingly failed to attain in 10 years – it gave you a name, a proof and an answer.

It transpires that in 1991 it issued you with a quantity that already belonged to another person. The way you managed to double up for these six working years with out the error being detected, I can’t fathom and HMRC won't say. It claims that an excessive amount of time has elapsed for it to research how the error occurred. A decade of that point was wasted by its personal inexcusable delays.

Solely now, with the specter of a headline prodding its behind, does it let you know to use for a brand new NI quantity from the Division for Work and Pensions. After you have this, HMRC will retrieve and merge the private data referring to your earlier two numbers.

Given its present service document and the complexity of disentangling your employment data from the deceased stranger, I've low confidence that this can occur seamlessly and shortly.

HMRC has provided you a pitiful £250 in compensation. I’ve suggested you to hunt skilled recommendation as a result of, with soon-to-be three NI numbers to your title, you may have missed out on entitlements or been saddled with liabilities.

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