Good afternoon,

Except it’s not. When the FE gets round to reading this he may move it to another forum!! Because this not a real question!

At lunchtime today I received a letter from Department of Work and Pensions ( DWP ) which I thought upgraded my pension – except it didn’t!! It turns out – according to the girl at the DWP that the Revenue had sent them not all the information about me to them and they had been overpaying me by £6.88p per week, and so my pension will be reduced – starting on Monday. To be honest this isn’t a great deal to us but it is extremely annoying that after 3 and a half years I have effectively lost this years increase. She did say there was good news in that the DWP – having made the “mistake” – will not be asking for the money back.

So having got the reason sorted out – it was because not enough had been deducted from my contracted out deduction – I telephoned the Revenue. Be careful if this happens to you! When I told the girl there that not enough data on myself had been sent through she was – very insistent – on pointing out that it was National Insurance that forwarded that sort of data not the Revenue. I was trying to be a little light-hearted about it, but she was not in the sort of mind-frame to take it that way at all. At least I got my code amended to less of a deduction from my main pension. I have never understood why the DWP can not tax my pension but insist on paying it gross. After all with all those thousands of employees the State can’t possibly work out how much tax has to be deducted from pensions – can it?

Anyway what I was letting everyone – OK at least the pensioners on here – is that the DWP seems to be getting round to checking everyone’s pension and I expect I will not be the last to find money going “missing” from their pension, so BEWARE