Spouse NI credits towards pension while overseas?

xylophone

With regard to the reason that you are advised of pre 88 GMP, post 88 GMP and the excess, it is indeed to do with how increases on your CS pension are paid when you draw your state pension.

Increases on pre 88 GMP and anything over 3% on post 88 GMP are paid with the state pension.

See page 8 of http://www.yourpension.org.uk/Files/Files/In%20The%20Scheme/5.%20GMPGuide240211.pdf

The GMP is more or less equivalent to the COD shown on the detailed letter you will receive from DWP concerning your state pension see post 18 https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/60319901#Comment_60319901

remembering that the figures shown are weekly amounts so that your COD on the statement would be roughly £58.00?

The question is whether if you defer your state pension, will your CS pension be increased as it has been up to now ( the whole amount by CS).

It may be that because you have not claimed your state pension, MyCSP will simply carry on as before because they have not received any notification from DWP/HMRC.

With regard to the workings of the NIM calculation, have another look at https://www.atl.org.uk/Images/PF8%20-%202011.pdf where there is a worked example under the heading "If you retire before state pension age"- I am assuming the workings are similar with CS.

I hope that your wife will soon have her situation clarified - it will be interesting to know the answer.

xylophone

(and its annual RPI increases)

CPI see http://www.civilservicepensionscheme.org.uk/media/36174/epn300-annex-a-qa.pdf

br1anstorm

Thanks again, xylophone, for the explanations and clarification. Whatever your daytime occupation, I think you may be in the wrong job.... MyCSP or the DWP should be fighting to hire you at a huge salary!

Seriously, those details and the linked pdfs etc are very useful. And as for the RPI vs CPI error - just me being careless and forgetting to check.

xylophone

MyCSP or the DWP should be fighting to hire you at a huge salary!

Just polishing up the CV now.......:rotfl:

I hope you and your wife manage to sort it all out - let us know the end of the story!

br1anstorm

This thread has more episodes than Coronation Street and more twists and turns than an Agatha Christie mystery! But for those kind members who have joined in the discussion and offered advice, and for those masochists still reading, here is the latest update.

It relates only to the original topic of the thread - which was, could my wife whose NI record was patchy because we lived and worked for the UK government overseas, boost her contributions in order to qualify for a state pension? She reached state pension age in 2013 but heard nothing from the DWP, and has not yet received any kind of pension payment.

We asked HMRC's NI office - twice - for a statement of her full NI record . It has taken them almost six months, but that statement has at last arrived.

She had paid only a total of 13 qualifying years of NI when working and earning in UK. Because she did not get Child Benefit (which would have earned 'credit' on her NI record) when overseas and not employed, this is all she has. So she is well short of the 30 years of NI required to qualify for a full pension.

Can she make up her record? The statement says she cannot now make voluntary contribs for any of the missing years between the 1970s and 2008, as it is "too late to pay". The NI letter says she now has the option of paying voluntary Class 3 for the last five years from 2008 to 2013, and has until 2 June 2015 to do so if she wishes.

(Interestingly other official guidance says one can pay Class 3 for up to a max of 6 additional years back as far as 1975-6, provided you have already got 20 years of NI credits. But she only has 13.)

Paying those voluntary Class 3s for the last 5 years (a lump sum of around £3600) would give her a maximum of 18 years of NI contribs. If my arithmetic is right, that would entitle her to exactly 60% of of the full state pension.

That is ironic - because she would in any case qualify for 60% of the full state pension as my spouse on the back of my (full) NI contribution record.

So it looks purely on the figures as if there is no point in paying out an extra £3600 in Class 3 voluntary contribs to get 5 more years on her own NI record, when she would anyway get exactly the same amount in spouse pension (aka Category B pension) thanks to my NI contributions.

The only wrinkle is ..... are there any other ways in which the Cat B pension which she would get as my spouse is any less attractive or less beneficial than getting a Cat A pension of the same amount in her own right? Does a Cat B pension make any difference to - say - entitlement to Bereavement Allowance or Widow's Pension etc if, further down the line, I were to predecease her? It only seems worth paying the extra £3600 now to get her a Cat A pension in her own right if, in some way or another, this brings benefits she would not otherwise get.

We now only have until 2 June to decide whether there is any point in paying-up that £3600 for the 5 extra years. My present view is that it seems not to be worth doing. But I'd welcome any comments from the usual experts - or others!

xylophone

She does have some contribution years in her own right - is she going to receive arrears of pension?


If you predecease your wife, she should be able to claim an increased pension on your record.

https://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/articles/state-pensions
https://www.gov.uk/state-pension/further-information

The information has been a long,long time a-comin.....:)

atush

As she has not claimed her pension, find out if she has effectively deferred and will receive 10.4% extra for each year on top?

br1anstorm

I knew I could rely on the regular readers to join in again! Thanks to you both.

Yes, a long time coming. In fact the enquiry to HMRC/NI about her contribution record was always just the first stage in untangling or clarifying the position.

The immediate question now is - do we bother to buy extra years (voluntary Class 3) before 2 June? On this, my instinct is not to do so.

The next step is to request an estimate or statement of her pension from The Pensions Service (ie DWP) - or perhaps, since she has already reached and passed her state pension age, we have to actually "apply" for payment of her pension.

My understanding (on the point raised by atush on deferral and the 10.4%) is that - whatever the basis for her pension - she has in effect deferred it for a year or two. So surely whether based on her own limited record, or on my NI record, the amount she would have got in 2013 will have been boosted by that 10.4% pa anyway?

Or does it work differently: that if she had applied when due back in 2013, she would only have been eligible for a pension based on her own record, not based on mine .......and that she could only begin to collect a Cat B spouse pension when I myself hit 65 in 2015 and became entitled to draw my own state pension?

If this latter scenario is what applies, then I guess she'd only get the 10.4% augmentation for the two years deferral 2013-15, calculated on the (small) pension for which she would have qualified in her own right.

But if we now buy the extra years (18 instead of 13) would that then be taken as the basis for calculating what she would have got if she had claimed at her state pension age, and thus the amount which would then be boosted by 10.4% pa. That would be a tricky bit of calculation....

Part of the challenge in asking the Pension Service, now, for her pension statement (especally if in effect we have to ask for it to start being paid) is to be able to frame the questions in the right way to get the right answers!

xylophone

Had she applied in 2013, she would have received a pension based on her own contributions but would have been able to increase it to the full 60% when you reached state pension age.

See links in post above.

It seems to me that she deferred her own state pension by not claiming it.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/372517/dwp024-102014.pdf

She should ring the DWP


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