Revenue & Customs might have mistakenly sent tax notices asking for money from hundreds of thousands of unsuspecting workers. The error, uncovered by the BBC's 'Money Box' programme, is being blamed on a fault with the Revenue's computer system.

The notices ask taxpayers to pay £371 each to make up their annual contribution to the basic state pension. The Revenue said it was not known how many wrong claims were made out of a total of 4.7m tax notices.