Backdating NI contributions for UK State Pension

[Andrew from Vista Financial]

Hello.

 

Just wanted to post this after a discussion at the weekend during the UK Pension Transfer Seminar regarding making up missed National Insurance contributions for receipt of the British State Pension whilst living in Oz.

 

The general situation is that you can ordinarily backdate missed payments for up to 6 years with voluntary contributions.

 

As below:

 

If you have an incomplete National Insurance Contributions (NICs) record, this can reduce the amount of basic state pension (BSP) you receive at retirement. However, in some circumstances, you can make good any gaps by paying Voluntary NICs, thereby helping you qualify for, or improve, your entitlement.

 

Voluntary NICs (known as Class 3 NICs) can be paid for any tax year in which you were over 16 and not liable to pay Class 1 and/or Class 2 NICs. In some circumstances, you can also pay voluntary NICs whilst living abroad.

 

You cannot, however, pay voluntary NICs if you are a woman who has elected to pay the reduced rate NICs for the whole of a tax year.

 

 

 

For the tax years 2002/03 onwards, the normal time limits for the payment of voluntary NICs apply. This means you must pay within six years of the end of the tax year in which voluntary NICs were due. The payment date for the:

• 2002/03 tax year is 5 April 2009
  
• 2003/04 tax year is 5 April 2010
  
• 2004/05 tax year is 5 April 2011
  
• 2005/06 tax year is 5 April 2012
  
• 2006/07 tax year is 5 April 2013
  
• 2007/08 tax year is 5 April 2014
  
• 2008/09 tax year is 5 April 2015
  

Additional rules in force from 6 April 2009

 

 

 

From 6 April 2009, it will be possible to pay up to a further six years of voluntary NICs, over and above those detailed in the above section, to help boost the BSP entitlement. The criteria for paying these further contributions are:

• Your State Pension Age (SPA) must be between 6 April 2008 and 5 April 2015;
  
• You can only pay for missing years going back to 6 April 1975; and
  
• You must already have at least 20 qualifying years (including Home Responsibilities Protection) on your NI record
  

Read here for more info:

 

http://www.pensionsadvisoryservice.org.uk/state-pensions/voluntary-nics

 

Now that there are changes taking place where only 30 years NI contributions are required for full State Pension it may well be worth considering extra payments.

 

 

Regards

 

 

Andy

[sueoc]

Thanks Andrew,this is something i really need to look in to.Good Luck.

[tinkertailerdog]

Quick question, how do you know how many qualifying years you have? Would the UK tax office tell you this?

[Rob and Mel]

Thanks for this info Andy.

Some thing worth looking into.

 

Rob and Mel

[minty]

Quick question, how do you know how many qualifying years you have? Would the UK tax office tell you this?

 

Hi, if you ring the inland revenue up they will send you out a statment of NI contributions saying how many years you have done and how many you still have to make. You can continue paying class 2 contributions from overseas monthly or yearly untill you get to the required amount of years which is 30 for us.

[mydearboy]

Hi All

I have been here 3 years, can i pay for the 3 years i have missed and then continue to pay annualy can i pay it all in one go, or will i have to just start from now? Cheers

[minty]

Hi All

I have been here 3 years, can i pay for the 3 years i have missed and then continue to pay annualy can i pay it all in one go, or will i have to just start from now? Cheers

 

Pretty sure you can back pay. It dosent start from scratch as it goes on your total contributions.

[Andrew from Vista Financial]

Hi All

I have been here 3 years, can i pay for the 3 years i have missed and then continue to pay annualy can i pay it all in one go, or will i have to just start from now? Cheers

 

 

Hi

 

Yes, it is possible to backdate for up to 6 years and then pay annually going forward.

 

 

Andy