Kathryn Tattum: All they told me when I rang up is there is a backlog. The system is so overwhelmed no one is taking responsibility
Savers who fell foul of the state pension top-ups system have accused the Government of encouraging them to make unnecessary payments, then failing to help find and refund their cash.
Untold sums of top-ups cash could be sitting in Government coffers, instead of being repaid to people who are still in the dark about what
Attendance Allowance is an important benefit for elderly people who need help caring for themselves.
It’s worth either £68.10 or £101.75 a week, and you don’t need to be hard-up to qualify.
It is for people over state pension who need help at home because of an illness or disability.
Benefit experts believe many people fail to claim Attendance Allowance, as they might be unaware of the payments or believe they are means-tested.
Anyone who applies has to fill in
Kate Phillips: Handed over £11,500 and nine months later was still waiting for state pension top-ups to be processed
Frustrated savers are continuing to complain of state pension top-ups chaos as the Government readies a new online service for launch by early April.
The Department for Work and Pension and HMRC must put enough staff in place to make sure the whole system does not ‘fall over’ under a new surge of top-up purchases, warns former Pensions Minister Steve Webb.
Ian Taylor: Paid £5,700 in July but was still chasing up his payment five months later
Desperately worried savers are contacting us in droves about huge state pension top-up payments that have gone missing for up to a year.
We highlight ELEVEN cases today of This is Money readers in despair over lost money.
Their tales reveal administrative turmoil in the system run jointly by HMRC and the Department for Work and Pensions.
Retired firefighter Ian Taylor, 65, pictured right,
No one wants loved ones to get lumped with a hefty inheritance tax bill unnecessarily, but more people’s estates are being dragged into its net.
Luckily there are many legal ways to dodge the dreaded 40 per cent ‘death tax’ if you want to pass on the maximum sum possible and are prepared to plan ahead.
The Conservatives are reportedly considering abolishing inheritance tax in the Budget on 6 March, or promising to do so in their next election manifesto
Ahead in the polls: Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves has promised a review of the pension system if Labour beat the Tories at the next election
The looming election means the Conservatives and Labour will be going all out to attract the votes of pension savers and retirees in 2024.
They are likely to agree on keeping the popular state pension triple lock and using the nation’s pension savings to boost economic growth.
But the parties could end up opposed on
Jeremy Hunt: What will the Chancellor have to say on pensions on 22 November
The Chancellor could use the Autumn Statement to win plaudits from older voters by announcing he will honour the triple lock and raise the state pension by 8.5 per cent next April.
Jeremy Hunt is more likely to reveal his plans in the House of Commons on Wednesday if he is keeping the pledge, than if he intends to fudge it with a 7.8 per cent
Redundancy normally deals anyone experiencing it a nasty emotional and financial blow, but if you are approaching retirement it can prove a well-timed opportunity.
Any accompanying compensation package can boost your pension, offer handy tax perks and allow you to overhaul your finances in various useful ways like paying off debts.
We look at ways to turn what might at first seem a setback to your advantage, with a checklist compiled with the help of pension experts. Below are their
Susan Ryan: I find it ludicrous that I would pay £824 and don’t get a receipt, acknowledgment, letter, nothing
People who spent big sums on state pension top-ups are angry their cash has apparently gone missing and they can’t get answers out of HMRC or the Department for Work and Pensions.
Opposition politicians have called the top-ups system ‘utterly shambolic’ and condemned government failures to accurately record state pension entitlement as ‘an insulting failure of basic competence’.
Susan Ryan, pictured
Daphne and Tim: ‘It has taken years to work our way through the complaints procedure, with the support of Steve Webb’
A state pension victory for a Surrey woman offers a ‘glimmer of hope’ for others being denied full backpayments of lost cash.
Tens of thousands of elderly women are receiving nearly £1.2billion in state pension arrears after being shortchanged for decades, a scandal uncovered by our columnist Steve Webb and This is Money.
But some women are only receiving
