Snowy79 Posted April 13, 2021 Posted April 13, 2021 1 hour ago, hk blues said: I'll throw in my usual plug for this - anyone who hasn't got the max 35 years can make voluntary contributions of around 150gbp a year - well worth it in the long run IF you survive much beyond 67 or so. True to form the Government screw you over. There are two classes of National Insurance contributions. The rates for the 2021 to 2022 tax year are: £3.05 a week for Class 2 £15.40 a week for Class 3 The strange thing is if you are living abroad and not working you pay class 3. The rules are as follows: Living abroad but not working Class 3 - but only if at some point you’ve lived in the UK for at least 3 years in a row or paid at least 3 years of contributions. So basically if you are not benefitting from National Insurance which covers the NHS, waste disposal, roads etc you pay more. https://www.gov.uk/voluntary-national-insurance-contributions/who-can-pay-voluntary-contributions Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freebie Posted April 14, 2021 Posted April 14, 2021 23 hours ago, hk blues said: I'm surprised you're getting such a small state pension - isn't the basic around £140 a week currently? I only worked 8 yeasr in UK and then the rest were in other countries. I paid a lump sum for the outstanding two years to qualify , based on minimum of 10 years paying into NI. The latest estimate I obtained from Government gateway was about 60 pounds a week. Took many hours of phone calls and letters to the various pension offices ( plus a long time to find my actual NI number , given that I hadn't used it for 35 plus years previously ) to actually find out the amounts owed , but glad I got it all done . 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimeve Posted April 14, 2021 Posted April 14, 2021 18 minutes ago, Freebie said: I only worked 8 yeasr in UK and then the rest were in other countries. I paid a lump sum for the outstanding two years to qualify , based on minimum of 10 years paying into NI. The latest estimate I obtained from Government gateway was about 60 pounds a week. Took many hours of phone calls and letters to the various pension offices ( plus a long time to find my actual NI number , given that I hadn't used it for 35 plus years previously ) to actually find out the amounts owed , but glad I got it all done . I have 32 full qualifying years but the work and pension say I have 5 years missing. They sent me a list of years I have to pay for a full pension. At the moment just getting paid for 32 years. I think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hk blues Posted April 14, 2021 Posted April 14, 2021 17 hours ago, Snowy79 said: True to form the Government screw you over. There are two classes of National Insurance contributions. The rates for the 2021 to 2022 tax year are: £3.05 a week for Class 2 £15.40 a week for Class 3 The strange thing is if you are living abroad and not working you pay class 3. The rules are as follows: Living abroad but not working Class 3 - but only if at some point you’ve lived in the UK for at least 3 years in a row or paid at least 3 years of contributions. So basically if you are not benefitting from National Insurance which covers the NHS, waste disposal, roads etc you pay more. https://www.gov.uk/voluntary-national-insurance-contributions/who-can-pay-voluntary-contributions Yep. I'm lucky as I'm working here so I can pay Class 2. That said, Class 2 payers don't get any additional benefits over Class 3 other than paying much less. The rates are not specific to those overseas, they apply to all regardless of living in the UK or abroad. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sonjack2847 Posted April 14, 2021 Posted April 14, 2021 18 hours ago, jimeve said: I have 32 full qualifying years but the work and pension say I have 5 years missing. They sent me a list of years I have to pay for a full pension. At the moment just getting paid for 32 years. I think. In 2012 I owed 2 years but they upped the years you have to pay in so now it will be 7. Not worth it in my mind as I may not live to get my pension and they will not give my wife anything ( except a one off payment) as she has property. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snowy79 Posted April 15, 2021 Posted April 15, 2021 3 hours ago, sonjack2847 said: In 2012 I owed 2 years but they upped the years you have to pay in so now it will be 7. Not worth it in my mind as I may not live to get my pension and they will not give my wife anything ( except a one off payment) as she has property. I calculated that I'd have to be about 85 to work out even if I paid additional years and then they'd probably tax me 20 plus % on anything above my annual allowance. I think deffering your pension for a year or two works out better if you can afford it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hk blues Posted April 15, 2021 Posted April 15, 2021 4 hours ago, sonjack2847 said: In 2012 I owed 2 years but they upped the years you have to pay in so now it will be 7. Not worth it in my mind as I may not live to get my pension and they will not give my wife anything ( except a one off payment) as she has property. 37 minutes ago, Snowy79 said: I calculated that I'd have to be about 85 to work out even if I paid additional years and then they'd probably tax me 20 plus % on anything above my annual allowance. I think deffering your pension for a year or two works out better if you can afford it. I was fully paid up as well until they introduced the new basic state pension and ended up 8 years short. They provided me the amount I'd get if I didn't make any additional payments and I was about 30 quid per week short of the max. I was working so could take advantage of Class 2 that costs around 150 a year so after only 5 weeks I'd break even. Even if I was having to pay Class 3 I'd break even after about 25 weeks so still well worth it. Maybe take another look at your calcs guys. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snowy79 Posted April 15, 2021 Posted April 15, 2021 (edited) 1 hour ago, hk blues said: I was fully paid up as well until they introduced the new basic state pension and ended up 8 years short. They provided me the amount I'd get if I didn't make any additional payments and I was about 30 quid per week short of the max. I was working so could take advantage of Class 2 that costs around 150 a year so after only 5 weeks I'd break even. Even if I was having to pay Class 3 I'd break even after about 25 weeks so still well worth it. Maybe take another look at your calcs guys. Another way is to defer your pension as you get between 5.8% and 10.04% per annum depending on whether you get the full rate or the lower rate of pension respectively. As my military pension takes me over the annual threshold my pension will be taxed at 20%. Remember though if you don't claim your pension then that's money lost whilst deferring so only defer if you can afford to defer a few years. Dererring one year could cost you about £9,339 just to get a £542 pension increase. https://www.gov.uk/deferring-state-pension/what-you-get Edited April 15, 2021 by Snowy79 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hk blues Posted April 15, 2021 Posted April 15, 2021 2 hours ago, Snowy79 said: Another way is to defer your pension as you get between 5.8% and 10.04% per annum depending on whether you get the full rate or the lower rate of pension respectively. As my military pension takes me over the annual threshold my pension will be taxed at 20%. Remember though if you don't claim your pension then that's money lost whilst deferring so only defer if you can afford to defer a few years. Dererring one year could cost you about £9,339 just to get a £542 pension increase. https://www.gov.uk/deferring-state-pension/what-you-get Luckily, or unluckily, I will be below the threshold so should be able to swerve tax on my pension. I have not looked into deferring it but a family member did that based on bad advice and deferred for 5 years and discovered that he would never recover the "lost" pension even with the increased amount he got. I'm wondering in what scenario someone would get back enough to cover the "lost" amount - in your example it would take 15 years even allowing for tax saving if I've got my sums right. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimeve Posted April 15, 2021 Posted April 15, 2021 7 hours ago, hk blues said: Maybe take another look at your calcs guys. I'm going to pay for the 5 years that I'm missing. the 5 years is going to cost me about 3k pounds. I worked it out that every month I will get just over 100 pounds 100x 12=1,200. 1,200x 10= 12,000 pounds in just 10 years if I live that long. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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