The problem concerns the Home Responsibilities Protection (HRP) system which reduces the number of qualifying years from 39 to a minimum of 20 years required to receive a full state pension for women who have taken time off work to bring up children.
Although HRP should be given automatically to a woman who is receiving child benefit at any time after April 1978 this has not been the case, with many thousands of UK women unaware they qualify for HRP and not receiving full pensions because of HMRC's system failing to automatically adjust their qualifying pension years.
HRP should be given automatically to women, registered foster carers (since April 2003) and those receiving attendance allowance or income support (because they are caring for a sick or disabled person), who since 5 April 1978 have stopped work to bring up children and who are claiming child benefit. Women who elected to pay the reduced stamp do not initially qualify for HRP, but will have qualified once they were off work for two years.
Mike Warburton, senior tax partner at Grant Thornton, has experience advising many women who have wrongfully not received HRP and believes the problem is widespread.
He said: "This problem goes back as far as 1978 when HRP was introduced. My main concern is that we have thousands of women struggling on reduced pensions who should actually be receiving greater state support. My hope is that the problem can be correctly identified and resolved with retrospective effect."
Warburton believes there are two reasons why the system may not have worked correctly. Firstly, until fairly recently a woman claiming Child Benefit did not need to include her NI Number on the form and when their NI record was assessed there was no indication of child benefit receipt.
Secondly, a large number of women elected to pay the reduced rate of NI when they started work, probably without realising that in doing so they were failing to clock up qualifying years towards their State Pension. Under the rules those women could not qualify for HRP in those years. Where such woman stopped work for two years or more post 1978, the eligibility for reduced rate disappeared, but by the same token, they were eligible again for HRP.
Warburton is concerned that it may be difficult for those who believe they are affected by this problem to claim back their qualifying years because two government departments, that of the Treasury and the Pension Service, are involved and will need to coordinate their activities to process any repayments.
HOW TO FIND OUT IF YOU QUALIFY FOR A REBATE
If you are over 60 or within four months of retirement call the Pension Service on 0845 6060 265, otherwise call 0845 3000 168. The request will be put through to your local district and at this juncture you should request a BR1 form.
The BR1 form is available from www.thepensionservice.gov.uk . Warburton said: "It is a 16 page document which may be daunting for some people, but it is relatively easy to read. It asks for the National Insurance Number and asks about various benefits that the claimant may have received. However, nowhere on the form is there any reference to Home Responsibilities Protection, or anything specifically which might alert someone to the fact that this might be relevant to their State Pension calculation. For this reason you should fill out the form and then query it with the Pension Service."
On receiving the form, the Pension Service check with HMRC to establish whether HRP is available or not. As the current research has shown this may not be happening in many cases so you are entitled to raise any queries you have about your pension entitlement and the Pension Service will investigate on your behalf.
Warburton believes the whole system relies upon HMRC having the correct details on the individual concerned and said: "Because of the recent merger of Inland Revenue and Customs & Excise and a few years ago the merger of the Inland Revenue with the Contributions Agency, there is always the possibility that something fell into a gap between these different agencies at some stage and, of course, before the National Insurance Number was necessary for claiming child benefit, it may be that the Contributions Agency and the DHSS which administered the child benefit did not communicate effectively. Whatever the case, it will be the responsibility of the individual to chase this up as neither HMRC or the Pension Service will be."
