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Inland Revenue Letter For Student
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Savvy_Sue wrote:If your daughter plans to get pregnant soon after qualifying as a nurse (or even before) then it's worth looking into, because maternity is one of the benefits you need enough conts. for.
But other than that, it's probably not worth making the conts. at her age!
I'm 24 (and female) and I've only paid 3 months of NI contributions so have no full years of contributions. There's a strong possibility we may start a family as soon as I finish my PhD (that will be when I'm 26 with any luck) so I can avoid having to have a career break. Could you explain a bit more whether its worth me paying the voluntary contributions please, I'm afraid I don't understand maternity/child benefits at all - I thought NI just affected the amount of state pension you got.
Thanks, Zar.:shhh: There's somewhere you can go and get books to read... for free!
:coffee: Rediscover your local library! _party_0 -
Hello Zar,
I think you need to have a look at this HMRC form http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/leaflets/ca08.pdf
Regards
Weemee0 -
This has happened to me as well, I did work at uni, and paid some NI contributions. I have a letter telling me that I am short on contributions for 3 years (all when I was at uni). I think I can pay them around £1000 to make all 3 years qualify. However, I have until 2009 to do this. The years I underpaid were 1998/9, 1999/2000 and 2000/1 - if your daughter phones the DWP and asks for a pension forecast, all the information will come in a pack - it explains exactly how they work out underpayments and what paying the extra will mean. Quite informative actually, I was surprised!
The people who mind don't matter, and the people who matter don't mind
Getting married 19th August 2011 to a lovely, lovely man :-)0 -
For a Pension Forecast contact the Pension service on 0845 3000 168, or online at https://www.thepensionservice.gov.uk .
The underpayments on the forecast show whether you need to pay them or not, it shows every available year that you can pay for, even if its not advantageous.
( I used to be a technical advisor the Pension Forecasting )
If you expect to keep on working until pension age and get your 44 years then there are 5 years lee-way in your working life of 49 years where you can manage without paying any contributions.
Also, between 16 and 18, a person receives automatic juvenile credits to preserve their NI record, so everyone over 18 will already have 2 years NI conts minimum.I no longer work in Council Tax Recovery but instead work as a specialist Council Tax paralegal assisting landlords and Council Tax payers with council tax disputes and valuation tribunals. My views are my own reading of the law and you should always check with the local authority in question.0 -
I've just tried to use the online pension forecast part of the website, but it's telling me that my details are invalid..... i'm doing a phd so maybe they want the postcode of the last place i did taxable work.... whatever the solution is (going to call tomorrow since they're closed today!) it's another really annoying thing about being a student on a stipend - there must be hundreds, maybe thousands of us in the UK and there is no specific information about the situation we're in.... from things like getting a student bank account again to this, it's all an uphill struggle to get anyone not in a university to understand!!!
(and i know it's a nice tax free income and all that and i should be more grateful but it just gets tedious when there seems to be nothing related to my situation on any government website)
(rant over - sorry :$ !):happyhear0 -
If its when your registering, they check your details against the NIRS computer system (NI system), if you haven't notified them of a new home address, they'll have the last notified one.
You need to contact a DWP or IR office and get them to complete an MF65 change of details form (not sure if IR use the same numbered form as DWP).I no longer work in Council Tax Recovery but instead work as a specialist Council Tax paralegal assisting landlords and Council Tax payers with council tax disputes and valuation tribunals. My views are my own reading of the law and you should always check with the local authority in question.0 -
I think its alwys best to pay these contributions if you can or later when you are working - they let you pay even after some years. The argument that the state pension will be so small on retirement that it doesn't matter is flawed. When a person who is a student now retires in 44 - 47 years the amount of the pension will be far higher than it is now and for the sake of a couple of hundred quid it is not worth loosing a proportion of it for every year of contributions lost. What has to be remembered is that so many young people don't make any provision for a pension and many more never do. The state pension is actually quite cheap if you consider that after you start to work - you HAVE to pay for it. So the extra student contribs are a very good deal in return for not loosing a proportion of the ultimate compulsory contribution state pension.0
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I really do not understand the different types of contributions which can be made.
When I was doing my PhD I was sent this letter asking for voluntary contributions but didn't pay because I assumed I would have enough money later... However, in stead of getting a job I became ill with ME and haven't worked since. Because I never worked enough to make the right kind of contributions I am not eligible for Incapacity Benefit. I have no idea if making a voluntary contribution would have covered me for Incapacity Benefit but if it would have then I would recommend to people that they should pay it in case they become ill before they have made enough credits. Incapacity Benefit is a really good benefit to receive if you are ill and unable to work (for many reasons).
If voluntary contributions do not contribute towards Incapacity Benefit then I would recommend waiting until you have an income before making a voluntary contribution (put the money aside as quickly as possible and pay as late as possible).
At the moment I have to apply for Incapacity Benefit to receive Incapacity Credits which protect the state pension contributions I never made... being in receipt of Incapacity Credits would also qualify me for Income Support if my wife and I met the criteria. NB, if the pension credit criteria is anything like the Income Support criteria (don't get me started... I can go on for ever about how Income Support traps people on benefits) then I would recommend doing your utmost to increase your pension and avoid having to apply for pension credit. The benefit system is very complicated and, as a general rule, best avoided!0 -
melancholly wrote:it's another really annoying thing about being a student on a stipend - there must be hundreds, maybe thousands of us in the UK and there is no specific information about the situation we're in.... from things like getting a student bank account again to this, it's all an uphill struggle to get anyone not in a university to understand!!!
(and i know it's a nice tax free income and all that and i should be more grateful but it just gets tedious when there seems to be nothing related to my situation on any government website)
It is confusing sometimes isn't it. e.g. When doing anything financial that asks for your gross income if you put down the amount you actually get, e.g. £12000, they'll assume you'll be paying tax and NI contributions so will only actually get £9900 when of course you will get the full £12k (unless you pay vountary NI as per this discussion of course!). When my husband wasn't working because we'd moved towns for me to start the PhD a lot of the letting agents wouldn't believe that we had a guaranteed income or could afford to rent a house on my stipend.:shhh: There's somewhere you can go and get books to read... for free!
:coffee: Rediscover your local library! _party_0 -
00Kell wrote:I really do not understand the different types of contributions which can be made.
When I was doing my PhD I was sent this letter asking for voluntary contributions but didn't pay because I assumed I would have enough money later... However, in stead of getting a job I became ill with ME and haven't worked since. Because I never worked enough to make the right kind of contributions I am not eligible for Incapacity Benefit. I have no idea if making a voluntary contribution would have covered me for Incapacity Benefit but if it would have then I would recommend to people that they should pay it in case they become ill before they have made enough credits. Incapacity Benefit is a really good benefit to receive if you are ill and unable to work (for many reasons).
If voluntary contributions do not contribute towards Incapacity Benefit then I would recommend waiting until you have an income before making a voluntary contribution (put the money aside as quickly as possible and pay as late as possible).
At the moment I have to apply for Incapacity Benefit to receive Incapacity Credits which protect the state pension contributions I never made... being in receipt of Incapacity Credits would also qualify me for Income Support if my wife and I met the criteria. NB, if the pension credit criteria is anything like the Income Support criteria (don't get me started... I can go on for ever about how Income Support traps people on benefits) then I would recommend doing your utmost to increase your pension and avoid having to apply for pension credit. The benefit system is very complicated and, as a general rule, best avoided!
Welcome to the forums 00Kell! - sorry to hear about your illness. I have just found a webpage which answers my orginal question on whether voluntary contributions would help with maternity benefits and yours on incapacity benefit:
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/students/nics_what_benefits_12_2.htm
Specifically: voluntary payments do not improve your entitlement to either incapacity or maternity benefit, whereas self-emplyed contributions do. They also do not count towards contribution based job-seekers allowance. So there seems to be no way for the thousands of students who go on to do masters and PhDs via grants to improve their entitlements to these two important benefits (or students in general but its not so bad when its only 3 years rather than the 8 or 9 I'll have been a student for).
So, since it appears that the only benefit of paying voluntary NIs is my pension in over 40 years, I am tempted to save the money myself in the hope of one day being able to afford a house so at least I won't have any rent to pay when I'm retired, and hope that by then a liberal government will have come in and changed the pension system to a citizens pension based on residence only...:shhh: There's somewhere you can go and get books to read... for free!
:coffee: Rediscover your local library! _party_0
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