NI Contributions - Contribution JSA just ended

DollyDee_2

Thanks Sammy for your very thoughtful and thorough reply.

I had read on the internet about the benefit year being January to January as per your post and was personally surprised that it was not in line with the tax year - 6th April to following 5th April - seems silly to me. So the benefit year is one quarter of one tax year and three quarters of the next tax year.

My circumstances are: I was made redundant on 9th April 2009, along with 137 others due to closure of the site where we worked. I claimed the 6 months contribution based JSA immediately. This ran out mid-October 2009 but luckily I managed to get a maternity leave job & started on 9th November 2009. This job was never made permanent but I stuck at it (it was dreadful) until the end of June 2011 (no, she wasn't having an elephant, she didn't come back but someone else went on maternity leave) when I managed to get another maternity leave job (but back in accounts) and that finished on 11th April 2012. We were not paid until the last working day of April 2012. I wanted to wait until I had my P45 before I signed on (for the 2nd time in my life) for 6 months contribution based JSA as JCP messed up my P45 when I signed off in October 2009 (put me on Month 1 Tax & due to a further !!!!-up by HMRC, I still owe £126 tax).

So I actually claimed JSA C online on 17th May 2012 & this finished on 16th November 2012. I have tried really hard to get a job since April but there's not a lot going in the Midlands. I thought should I sign off or, as things are so bad jobwise, carry on signing to get my NI contributions so that I could claim again if necessary? Then I was told 2 different things my 2 different JSA staff. My query was - are the NI contributions I would be credited with Class 1 which would cover JSA in the future (if a claim was necessary) or would they be a different (lower) Class which would not cover JSA but might cover other benefits.

Sorry if I have gone into too much detail, I don't know much about benefits (luckily).

sammyjammy

As above the correct answer to your question was yes contributions credited on your behalf by DWP can entitle you to JSA C if you satisfy.

Its sensible that the Benefit year is different, if it was the same as the tax year it would take months for people to get the benefit they were entitled to because it takes that long for employers and HMRC to make sure all the relevant data for that person is up to date i.e. if you made a claim on 6th April they wouldn't be able to pay you even if you were entitled as they wouldn't have the evidence.