Pensioner gets £18k cheque from HMRC thanks to Martin Lewis’ tip

A woman received an £18,000 cheque from HMRC after listening to Martin Lewis’ pensions tax trick he shared on his live TV show.The financial guru warned ITV viewers thousands of people, particularly women, are failing to claim “big money” entitled to them thanks to pension rules. Joan emailed the team at Martin Lewis Money Show Live on Tuesday to vouch for the advice, because she recently got the cheque in the post.Angelica Bell, Martin’s co-host, read the email, which stated: “After watching your show on married women’s state pension, I contacted the tax department and, although it did take about seven months, I received a cheque for £18,000. I was amazed as I never expected this amount.”Martin, who founded website MoneySavingExpert.com, said other people may be in Joan’s position, unaware they are entitled to large sums of cash.He told his viewers: “There are hundreds of thousands of, generally women, who are due at least £6,000 pension back.”Married women and widows may have been underpaid, specifically women who hit state pension age before April 6, 2016.”So that’s people aged approximately 70 or older. And your basic state pension needed to be 60% of your husband’s basic state pension and this is only for married couples.”Now, you will get an automatic top up and it should be backdated. If your husband was 65 on or after March 17 2008, or you’re a widow whose husband died after April 2008 and you’re getting less than 60 per cent of his pension.”But you still need to claim. There are free tools online and you can call the pension service to do it. If you divorced after getting your state pension, and your pension is less than your ex-husband’s, again you may be eligible.” Martin Lewis offers money advice on his live ITV show (Image: ITV)The consumer journalist continued: “There’s a whole new category since I first did it. This can be a man as well, if you stay at home and look after the kids or you were a carer and you got the benefit for it, since April 1978 then if you don’t get a full state pension then you may be entitled to a top up on that.”As you’ve seen with Joan [the woman who received an £18,000 cheque], this is really big money.”Martin Lewis Money Show Live, now in its 12th series, airs on Tuesday evenings on ITV.