Imagine being told by the tax authority that you are dead. This is the Kafkaesque reality facing one woman after HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) made a catastrophic error with her National Insurance (NI) number, leading to a decade of bureaucratic paralysis and now a blocked state pension application.
A Fatal Administrative Error
The reader, who we are calling JH, originally moved to the UK from Ireland to work in 1991 and was issued an NI number at that time. After leaving and returning in 2015 for another job, HMRC informed her it could not find her original number on its system and issued a temporary one instead.
What JH did not know was that HMRC had, years earlier, allocated her original NI number to a complete stranger. When that stranger died, the government's systems effectively declared JH deceased as well. As a direct result, HMRC will not process her crucial state pension top-up request, citing her 'deceased' status.
A Decade of Futile Efforts
Since 2015, JH has been trapped in a maddening loop of trying to reclaim her original NI identity. She has spent countless hours on hold to HMRC helplines, sent letters, and even visited HMRC offices in person. All these efforts proved futile. At one point, she was told she might face an 86-week wait simply for a response to her queries.
The urgency is now critical. JH needs to submit her state pension forecast, but the official record stating she is dead creates an impassable barrier. "It is distressing to be told that I am 'deceased'," she writes from County Clare, Ireland.
HMRC's Belated and Inadequate Response
When pressed for an explanation, HMRC managed within five days to do what it had failed to achieve in over ten years: it called JH. The department revealed the shocking core of the problem: back in 1991, it issued her with a number that already belonged to someone else.
How this duplication went unnoticed for the six years she initially worked in the UK remains a mystery. HMRC refuses to investigate, claiming too much time has passed—a decade that was largely wasted by its own delays.
Only after the threat of media exposure did HMRC propose a solution. It has advised JH to apply for a brand new NI number from the Department for Work and Pensions. Once she has this third number, HMRC claims it will attempt to merge her personal information from the previous two. Given the department's track record and the complexity of untangling her work history from that of the deceased stranger, confidence in a swift resolution is low.
In recognition of the profound distress and inconvenience caused, HMRC has offered a paltry £250 in compensation. Experts warn that with three NI numbers linked to her name, JH may have missed out on entitlements or could face unexpected tax liabilities, and have advised her to seek professional help.
This case exposes a frightening vulnerability at the heart of the system. An NI number is meant to be a unique, lifelong identifier, foundational to an individual's tax, employment, and pension rights. When it goes catastrophically wrong, as it has for JH, it can render a person a non-entity in the eyes of the state, with life-altering consequences. Her fight to prove she is alive continues, a stark warning about the human cost of administrative failure.
