NI Top Up Deadline Extended To 5th April 2025

Muttleythefrog

According to my wife's online pension forecast on the government website her deadline has just changed from 5 April 2025 to 1 May 2025 today for the earlier affected years.

I'm trying to contact HMRC online to find out if this is an error or
if there has been a policy change or 
if the fact she has a carer's credit application in mandatory reconsideration phase asking for historical credits beyond normal backdating period (they lost her reconsideration request for months and have left us knocking on the door of deadline to pay for the gaps rendering the MR soon valueless) has affected this

Anyone explain? Image attached. I'll call them tomorrow if necessary but stuck at moment.

molerat

Looks like it is one of those quirks in the system, tomorrow it will likely state 2nd May, I wouldn't put money on it being correct though.  Or maybe they are running with the callback times and will cut off when they have caught up.

MikeyPGT

Muttleythefrog said:

According to my wife's online pension forecast on the government website her deadline has just changed from 5 April 2025 to 1 May 2025 today for the earlier affected years.

I'm trying to contact HMRC online to find out if this is an error or
if there has been a policy change or 
if the fact she has a carer's credit application in mandatory reconsideration phase asking for historical credits beyond normal backdating period (they lost her reconsideration request for months and have left us knocking on the door of deadline to pay for the gaps rendering the MR soon valueless) has affected this

Anyone explain? Image attached. I'll call them tomorrow if necessary but stuck at moment.

Yep - mine is the same,  Perhaps that's when they think they'll get round to processing the 2004/25 tax year data ...

Muttleythefrog

molerat said:

Looks like it is one of those quirks in the system, tomorrow it will likely state 2nd May, I wouldn't put money on it being correct though.  Or maybe they are running with the callback times and will cut off when they have caught up.

It has indeed changed to 2 May 2025 since midnight... they don't know what they're doing as the chant goes!

Muttleythefrog

molerat said:

Looks like it is one of those quirks in the system, tomorrow it will likely state 2nd May, I wouldn't put money on it being correct though.  Or maybe they are running with the callback times and will cut off when they have caught up.

Have finally found reference to the matter..... it seems a legitimate 'trick' to extend deadline a month. If you click on the years you can top up it adds a month on until presumably it becomes not possible beyond 5th April. Would explain why the date changes and also the top up cost of years that do not expire for top up this 'April' also extended in terms of cost fixed.
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/pensions/article-14511207/Deadline-state-pension-special-deal.html

If anyone can get official verification it's obviously very important to people potentially in gaining an extra month - for us highly relevant as we have an active urgent claim for carer's credits specially backdated that they are running out of time to deliver a reconsideration decision on.

smipsy

I am one of those who are also now showing a May expiration date instead, but I've not been able to get through to anyone on HMRC or the Pension Futures phonelines to try and clarify this

1957DfurdPensionist

This is beyond a joke - what kind of people do they employ to program and run these government systems?  I ask as someone who once held a job title "Business Systems Manager" at a sizeable organisation in the City of London, and if I had been responsible for this kind of public airing of my employers dirty knickers, I don't think I'd have kept that title for long.

My NI record now says the old missing years can be paid by 5th May 2025 and gives the prices for each year.  Yet I "know", or rather, have been told several times without logical explanation, that there is no point me paying for any further years despite still not quite qualifying for a full nSP, and it supposedly cannot be improved.

Seemingly, this curious daily stepping forward of the deadline affects everybody, not just the few of us who have noticed it the last few days.   Surely it now makes a nonsense of that online callback request form/deadline excusing device introduced a few weeks ago.  Whilst the published payment deadline keeps stepping forward a day every day like this, it surely means everyone is excused the deadline irrespective of whether they completed the callback request form online.

The amount of uncertainty this moving feast of incompetence generates amongst tens of thousands currently concerned about optimising their state pension is shameful.

Muttleythefrog

...and now despite saying could pay up to 5 May 2025 yesterday is now saying cannot pay at all as time up yet today it is still supposed to be possible.

We did call up and the agent said the extension of a month was normal and that they only find out from callers!

What is going on... saying cannot pay even for recent years which have nothing to do with this years' deadline. Are others seeing same?

molerat

22-23 payable at £824.20 until 6 May 2025

21-22 too late to pay

10-11 too late to pay

QrizB

Honestly people you've had twelve years.

Waiting until the very last day of those twelve years, and knowing it falls on a Saturday when lots of bits of government have shut for the weekend, seems a bit reckless?