Universal credit and earned income - pension contribution deduction from UC

NedS

cybertortoise said:

Hi @NedS that's what I thought. But I didn't understand how UC could know all of my deductions to the penny, yet my NICs are being treated as income. 

I do have a personal tax account and can see the income tax and NI paid on each month during this tax year. 

The amounts reported by my employer are correct in so far as I can see. The personal tax account shows taxable pay, tax paid, and NI. All are correct. Except in the totals row at the bottom, NI paid says zero despite showing payments of £527.15 since April 2025. 

It says underneath the table "Your employer sent the individual and total amounts in the table above.The individual amounts do not add up to the total. When this happens we use the total amounts as your figures for the tax year."

And checking back on previous years the totals are zero for NI paid despite showing every monthly payment in that column. Yet my NI record for the 2024/25 tax year says full contributions and I paid £1437.29 - so they know my NI has been paid! 

It sounds like your NICs are being reported incorrectly by your employer to HMRC as zero, and UC then thinks you've paid £0 NIC, hence why the NI that you have actually paid is not being deducted.

You need to raise an RTI dispute with UC. They will raise it with HMRC for you, who will contact the employer to clarify the situation. Ultimately, you will likely need to raise an RTI dispute every AP until the employer resolves the situation and reports the correct numbers in the correct columns. HMRC (and UC) can only act on what the employer reports, and it is their responsibility to report accurately and on time.

These kind of administrative mistakes often only come to light when someone makes a claim for UC, and their reported earnings are not what they should be, and employers often have no clue they are not reporting correctly. Do you have other colleagues at work who claim UC, and are their claims similarly affected, or is the employer only getting it wrong for you [rhetorical - just something for you to consider]

cybertortoise

@NedS this was on my mind too. I work for an NHS foundation trust with 1000s of staff, if it's happened once I think it is pretty likely for it to have happened to someone else too. 

I have spoken to our payroll team and he has logged a support ticket so hopefully they'll be able to figure it out on their end. I had a different contract with the same employer before starting full time, the NI was being reported correctly on that one. It's just the current contract, plus the additional bank contract added at the same time, that are not.

NedS

cybertortoise said:

@NedS this was on my mind too. I work for an NHS foundation trust with 1000s of staff, if it's happened once I think it is pretty likely for it to have happened to someone else too. 

I have spoken to our payroll team and he has logged a support ticket so hopefully they'll be able to figure it out on their end. I had a different contract with the same employer before starting full time, the NI was being reported correctly on that one. It's just the current contract, plus the additional bank contract added at the same time, that are not.

Yes, payroll may think they are doing everything correctly. UC has a habit of exposing things, and I've seen all sorts come up on RTI disputes. As I said, you'll need to raise an RTI dispute and tell/show the jobcentre what you've discovered so far about your NI not being reported correctly. HMRC should then contact the employer too, and may even be able to help them correct the issue (assuming we are correct in our hypothesis).

cybertortoise

Quick update: I contacted my payroll provider and raised a support ticket. They marked it as resolved this morning and said this is a known issue with HMRC, basically ask HMRC to remove my initial contract with them and make sure my current contract is the main one. Also told me to submit payslips to UC showing the NICs. 

Unfortunately this has resolved nothing. UC know what my NI deductions are, so that info is going across as it should, showing payslips is meaningless when they have that info. Then I called HMRC and he said its already got my current contract as my main one, the old one was closed in May when I finally got my P45. And all the figures HMRC have are coming directly from my payroll provider. I have reopened the support ticket and told them the update.

NedS

cybertortoise said:

Quick update: I contacted my payroll provider and raised a support ticket. They marked it as resolved this morning and said this is a known issue with HMRC, basically ask HMRC to remove my initial contract with them and make sure my current contract is the main one. Also told me to submit payslips to UC showing the NICs. 

Unfortunately this has resolved nothing. UC know what my NI deductions are, so that info is going across as it should, showing payslips is meaningless when they have that info. Then I called HMRC and he said its already got my current contract as my main one, the old one was closed in May when I finally got my P45. And all the figures HMRC have are coming directly from my payroll provider. I have reopened the support ticket and told them the update.

Ah, the bounce around where each says it's the other's fault. I can't help advise with that as I don't know enough to know whether HMRC or the employer may be at fault, or a combination thereof.

In the meantime, what you can do is ask UC to raise an RTI dispute for each affected AP, and get the NI conts properly deducted.

Unfortunately you/UC will need to keep doing that until HMRC and/or the employer sort the issue such that the data is reported to UC correctly.