married womens state pension

oap

Hello, can anyone tell me where I can find out what my married womens state pension was in 1996? Just the normal standard one. Have been on Google but the links were not able to tell me, thanks you,oap

isasmurf

Theres no such thing as married womans state pension. A woman can have up to 60% of her husbands pension if her own pension is less than that.

And you'll find previous State (Retirement) Pension rates here

CIS

The rate would have been a maximum of 60% of the basic pension rate at the time (£61.15 full pension ,from what I can find) , assuming your circs haven't changed, if you tell me what your current basic pension payment is, I should be able to work it out for you.

CIS

Technically its a category ABL, or BL (if the woman has no pension entitlement of her own)

oap

Well I cannot see a thank you slot at the moment, so again,thank you, I spent the best part of last evening and most of this afternoon trying to find out what my married womens pension was when I became 60 in 1996. I think at one time it was paid together with my husbands pension, then they separated it, I worked part time most of the time, ie full time and full stamp until I had my son, (still married!!to the same gentleman!!) then was advised to just pay the married women's stamp, so my pension comes with my husband's contributions not mine, except I get 63p (PENCE!) per week, graduated pensions, which if I remember rightly was compulsory!!

I have got all the information I need from the link to the Institute of Fiscal studies and really appreciate this information. What a fantastic website this is, someone always comes up with a helpful answer, thanks again. oap

oap

Hello again, is it possible to find what the tax allowances were from 1996 also,? I have managed to find back to 2000, but cant get any further back? Thank you. oap

CIS

Here you go
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/stats/tax_structure/menu.htm

Note that the tax bands and the rates are in two seperate documents

oap

Eyes getting crossed now, so off to bed and will look in the morning, I cannot thank you enough, bless you, regards oap

margaretclare

You say 'you were advised' to just pay the married women's lower contribution. Who advised you? and why did you make the decision to act on that advice?

What bad advice it proved to be! What a pity that there's no mechanism for claiming 'mis-selling'!

I think I may have been given similar advice way way back, or rather it was a general assumption, but I always made my own choices and my own decisions. Consequently, in a second marriage (widowed and remarried) I get state retirement pension plus SERPS in my own right, the same as my husband does.

Margaret Clare

oap

Well that was a good idea,however, I am now 70, so we are talking 1963!! when my son was born, I went back to work part time for next 20 odd years, mostly in the same company, so there you go, it was decided that on part time wages there was no point in paying a full stamp.

We were talking the other day hubby and I, all the years he paid his superannuation in his company, and now we get no benefits at all, his small company pension (he was made redundant at 55) after 30 odd years with his company, stops us getting anything, he had paid a few years short of his final company pension, but it just brings us over getting anything free!! The more you save the less the government give you , even to taking y our hard earned house, when and if you go into care, those that spent spent spent, saved nothing, get it all free!!

Totally unfair, oooooooooh, youve got me going now, better go, regards oap

margaretclare

oap wrote:

Well that was a good idea,however, I am now 70, so we are talking 1963!! when my son was born, I went back to work part time for next 20 odd years, mostly in the same company, so there you go, it was decided that on part time wages there was no point in paying a full stamp.

We were talking the other day hubby and I, all the years he paid his superannuation in his company, and now we get no benefits at all, his small company pension (he was made redundant at 55) after 30 odd years with his company, stops us getting anything, he had paid a few years short of his final company pension, but it just brings us over getting anything free!! The more you save the less the government give you , even to taking y our hard earned house, when and if you go into care, those that spent spent spent, saved nothing, get it all free!!

Totally unfair, oooooooooh, youve got me going now, better go, regards oap

Hi oap

Your viewpoint on life is one that I hear quite often, and it's not one that I share.

For example, we are just looking at getting our roof replaced this summer. We think it won't stand another winter's gales and frost, after all it's older than we are (I'm 70 and he's 71). People have said to us 'oh, you're pensioners, you can get a grant towards it'. Not so! The roof is going to cost us approx £4K. If we were on means-tested benefits i.e. pension credit, the council would allow us up to £8K for this repair/replacement BUT it would be done in their time and to their conditions, i.e. they would only authorise this if it was actually leaking and they would come around to 'assess' it, they wouldn't believe a professional and reputable roofing company's word. We'd prefer not to wait until it starts leaking, this might be in the middle of winter, and where are we gonna find a roofer then maybe in the middle of the Christmas/New Year holidays when the council offices are also closed!!

Better be independent - so they don't give us anything, so what, we can manage on our own.

DH hasn't got a work pension although he has got an annuity which pays out approx £3500 a year before tax - that was his 'golden goodbye' when he was MD of his own company. He has got SERPS which pays just over £80 a week plus his SRP. I get SRP in my own right, having paid full contributions since I started working in 1951, and only had 3 years out of the working world, that was 1961 - 64. That decision - not to be conned into paying a smaller contribution - was one of the best I ever made in my life.

With the two of us getting our incomes separately, we're better off than we've ever been in our lives. The cost of the roof is coming out of our cash ISAs. Every 4 weeks when SRP is paid DH transfers £200 or so to his cash ISA, that's £200 from the previous 4 weeks that he hasn't used. he saves what he doesn't use - I do it the other way around, I save first.

Re the government taking our hard-earned house, I haven't noticed anyone coming around here wanting to take it. Every time we get a newsletter from the council, whether county or local, they emphasise that living in one's own home, even with a package of care coming in, is the preferred option. In other words, 'going into care' as you put it, is not very likely. It does happen, but it's a minority of people who need that. I heard recently of a lady who has just sold her flat, has a lump sum of some £70K to invest for income, and is moving into rented 'sheltered' accommodation.

Contrast that with an email my DH has just read out to me from his diabetes forum. In the richest country in the world, the USA, a woman has just had to give up work because of diabetic complications so she's lost her medical insurance. She can't afford her insulin! Without insulin, at a cost of approx £45 for a 30 ml vial (may last a week or two) it's a death sentence.

We are getting all our medications free. DH is diabetic - some of the little test strips he uses are £27 for 50 if he was paying the cost. On the AgeConcern forum there's a thread for people who are whingeing about having their tranquillisers withdrawn. They want to have these for the rest of their lives paid for free on prescription! Again, it was a wrong decision 30 years ago to start to take these things, but what a waste, and there are many countries in the world where essential medicines like insulin have to be paid for. We do take a lot for granted!

Margaret Clare