National Insurance – incomplete years

@bentandbroken. Thanks for that. I listened to the podcast (https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0f37yd2) and it appears that 35 years is only a guideline and that it might vary for various reasons. In fact, there was one email from a lady saying she had 40 years of full contributions and was still short of the maximum. Looks like I’ll be joining the phone queues next week!

But I would like to have the option of early retirement in terms of state pension,

You cannot.  Even if you have a full record then you cannot take it early

I think what was meant was to ensure the state pension contributions were maximised before taking early retirement so that there then wouldn’t be any missing years upon reaching state retirement age.

Ah

i am totally confused by this NI thing.  I checked mine – I have 35 years and a forecast of the maximum.  But I have some missing and incomplete years and will have another 5 years of not paying before I get my pension

.

Am I OK?  do I need to do anything?  Register as unemployed to get NI credits even tho I will get no benefits?

According to the podcast, if you’re at the maximum you’re fine.

Ta.

IANAPA so it might still be worth doing your own research!

If you’re at maximum then you don’t have to do anything – you can stop working whenever you like and then when you hit the relevant age you’ll get the full state pension.
Bear in mind a forecast of maximum doesn’t mean you are there yet – it just assumes you will keep working and therefore get there before state pension age.
The forecast thingy will tell you if you still need to work to get to maximum, and if so how many more qualifying years you need to work.

Having just checked a couple of links myself, it seems that the ‘all important’ deadline has officially been extended to July 2023.

.gov.uk link

HOWEVER!!!!

Please don’t stick this in to your ‘do it later’ list. This is ‘free money‘ that you could be ‘owed‘. HMRC will not hesitate to take what they are owed from you, please don’t hesitate to get what you are owed from them/this country

Just about to buy the missing five years from 2013 for Mrs TiRed. We didn’t claim child benefit and that’s the year when they linked the two (NI credits and CB) and you had to claim at zero rate if you were looking after children, to maintain credits. Not happy, along with at least 200k other families. By the time the class action happens, the years won’t be buyable. So a catch 22.

You have to claim for two years to make it cost effective. Most people will do that, so buy all the years you can up to 35 years. I finish my 35 years this year.

I managed to get through today and they told me that 33 would be enough for the full pension. I’ve also written to them to get clarification.

Does not sound correct!

You have to claim for two years to make it cost effective.

Oh tell me more about that.

I have one incomplete year (that is still open to pay for).  I don’t actually understand why it is incomplete but I did get made redundant and change jobs so there was maybe a month with no NI.  On the one hand I still have plenty of years future earnings to pay NI on so will get to 35 “naturally” but on the other I don’t want to be in a situation in the future where I have to endure working for another year just to sort this out.

They want about £350 to fix the “gap” which doesn’t seem ridiculous, but I can’t actually work out how to pay them it either.

I can’t actually work out how to pay them it either.

You have to call HMRC to get a refernce number for the missing year (paying for multiple missing years requires a new reference number for each year.

Then you can pay online on the gov website.

Good luck getting through to them though…why on earth you cant just pay online I don’t know.

I was surprised to see this thread resurface. However, having read through the new stuff I’m still a little confused.

If I have 35 complete years (and I’ll be paying in for another 12) I assume that the 4 incomplete years are an irrelevance and that I’ll get a state pension when the time comes?

For all the folk saying how helpful the helpline staff are, I absolutely agree, they certainly know their stuff and are remarkably patient (I imagine that they get a fair bit of grief). My complaint has always been the wait to get through (they must be run ragged).

If I have 35 complete years (and I’ll be paying in for another 12) I assume that the 4 incomplete years are an irrelevance and that I’ll get a state pension when the time comes?

Yes, once you’ve got 35 compleate years you could in theory stop working, and when you reach 65 you can claim full pension.

You have to call HMRC to get a refernce number for the missing year (paying for multiple missing years requires a new reference number for each year.

I recently made a payment covering 4 partial years and only needed one reference number. I just checked and those years are now complete. It only took a week or so between getting the reference number and the payments being applied.

A slightly different take on this…

For reasons I won’t go into, I’m “missing” a large number of years of NI conts and was considering buying the missing years but couldn’t get a clear answer on whether it was actually financially advantageous.

In the end, I decided not to bother BUT, instead, invested the equivalent (extra) amount in my (private) pension. It means my state pension will be lower but I should be able to make up the difference from my own pension with the added bonus of being able to draw it earlier than 67 if I really need it…

I know this won’t make financial sense for some people, or be achievable, but it may be an option for anyone stressing over missing NI conts….

Edit: the point being if you have £800 or whatever to pay for missing NI but HMRC say no, then stick that £800 in your SIPP or ISA or whatever instead of buying expensive mountain bike trinkets 😉

Need to talk to the pension service as you don’t want to pay needlessly or miss out on free money if you haven’t enough. I only needed 32 years as I said above.

35 years only applies to someone who began work from 6th April 2016 onwards. For the rest of us we’re in a transitional phase from old to new system and anything from 29 to 50 years may be needed.

I was never contracted out so paid the full wack.

the point being if you have £800 or whatever to pay for missing NI but HMRC say no, then stick that £800 in your SIPP or ISA or whatever instead of buying expensive mountain bike trinkets 😉

The thing is, you get no credit for any partially paid year. For instance, one of my “missing” years needed just £45 to top it up.

Another one here with NI and pension query….

I left the UK at 25 with nine years of full contributions.

As I understand/stood out, you needed ten years for the basic pension.

I’ve missed the chance to pay back those years as I’ve been away from the UK for 16 years.

My plan was to register in the UK at some point in the far future to pay in a few more years NI. Don’t want to do this any time soon as I’m not longer eligible for capital gains tax having been out the country for so long. Need to get my money out before registering in the UK again.

This plan sound good?

The thing is, you get no credit for any partially paid year. For instance, one of my “missing” years needed just £45 to top it up.

Sure. And, presumably in your case, HMRC didn’t say No. All I’m suggesting is that if HMRC refuse, there are options to invest any “extra” cash you may have to make up at least some of any potential shortfall in the state pension…

My plan was to register in the UK at some point in the far future to pay in a few more years NI. Don’t want to do this any time soon as I’m not longer eligible for capital gains tax having been out the country for so long. Need to get my money out before registering in the UK again.

I don’t understand this. What has capital gains got to do with NI conts?

@alpin: you can buy all those missing years contributions by April 2025. You’ll then have about 23 years of contributions. Pay another 12ish years any time before you retire, and you’ll have a full UK state pension.

But if you call HMRC and Future Pensions helplines, they will walk you through it.

Am I getting that right, anyone?

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/deadline-for-voluntary-national-insurance-contributions-extended-to-april-2025

From the moneysavingexpert site

There is a strict time limit on buying back years.

Normally you can buy back up to six years, but when the ‘new’ state pension was introduced, transitional arrangements were put in place to let you plug gaps all the way back to 2006.

This was due to end on 5 April 2023, and then 31 July 2023, but because so many people were trying, the necessary government phone lines got clogged up (mainly due to Martin shouting from the rooftops about it). So the date has been extended to 5 April 2025.

I recently made a payment covering 4 partial years and only needed one reference number. I just checked and those years are now complete. It only took a week or so between getting the reference number and the payments being applied.

Nice, I will try again in that case! maybe theres not so much of a backlog now?

Oooh, timely thread revival – I’m in a v similar position to Alpin so will get onto the NI helpline to find out where I’m at, I guess

Nice, I will try again in that case! maybe theres not so much of a backlog now?

My OH got through to the HMRC helpline quite quickly last week and they were very helpful. The Govt Gateway account wasn’t able to display incomplete years for some months (OH has unusual arrangements), but the person on the end of the phone dug up the historical stuff pretty quickly.

OH has to call Future Pensions and get the final figure before we can pay.

I know people complain about HMRC and there probably have been disasters, but whenever I’ve had to call them, they’ve been really accurate and helpful

Yep. It all happened very quickly for me. Based on previous reports I’d been worried that I’d still be faffing around and waiting when my state pension becomes payable in November this year. My main reason for resurrecting this thread was a bit of a PSA to get in while queues seem to be short.

Yes – I would guess it might get very busy from January onwards when people realise the window is closing forever!

I don’t understand this. What has capital gains got to do with NI conts?

Was under the impression that u had to be registered/living in the UK to pay NI as I had missed the chance to pay/buy the missing years.

@cerrado-tu-ruido @politecameraaction

@alpin: you can buy all those missing years contributions by April 2025. You’ll then have about 23 years of contributions. Pay another 12ish years any time before you retire, and you’ll have a full UK state pension

Sweet! If this is the case I’ll find out and get in the case…. Got to be worth it as I’ve not paid a penny into the German pension scheme as I’ve always been self employed…. Even my accountant said don’t bother with the bekam scheme as it’s so crap. Have got private pensions/investments running but obviously they’re not guaranteed.

There’s an option to write to them and it took 4 weeks for them to get back to me. Worth using signed for mail. The letter agreed to the phone advisor.