The Pasa guidance suggests there are three possible options available to schemes:
- Accept that HMRC is correct – this may mean accepting a liability or that the figures held by the administrator may need to be corrected;
- Take no action – which Pasa says only applies if trustees are confident the GMP figure they hold is correct;
- Undertake further investigative work.
According to the GMP Forum, an industry group, in about two-thirds of cases investigated HMRC’s record was shown to be correct, whilst in a third the scheme's was correct.
David Everett, partner at consultancy firm LCP, said: "One would have hoped that the number of cases where stalemate had been reached would be relatively few, but it appears that this is far from the case.
"The obvious answer to this is for the government to bend to numerous requests from the pensions industry to extend the HMRC deadline and provide more resource to it so that working together, member records can be fully reconciled and rectified where necessary."
An HMRC spokesperson said: "Since April 2014 HMRC has provided a free, voluntary service to the pensions industry to help them reconcile their records in bulk against the records we hold. We have been clear about the timetable for the conclusion of this service.
"HMRC has worked closely with the industry to develop solutions that will be effective for them."
Kay Ingram, director of public policy at national firm LEBC, said this was "an extraordinarily complicated subject".
She said: "HMRC should be reasonable about this and agreed on an extension, to make sure people received the right payments, because it is important that people maintain confidence in the state pension.
"If the dashboard already existed, this process would be much simpler, because all records would be digitised."
maria.espadinha@ft.com
