State Pension - One Year Short

LoopySnooker

I am just trying to work out the best way to get my wife's state pension upto the maximum it can be. Here's the figures from the forecast I obtained a few weeks back:

Estimate based on your National Insurance record up to 5 April 2017 - £152.56
Forecast if you contribute another 2 years before 5 April 2024 - £159.55 (the most she can get)

She is giving up work at the end of March so by then she will still be a couple of quid short of the maximum weekly pension. How should we go about paying NICs to make this up ? Am I right in thinking we would need to wait until April 2019 to pay ? There are no gaps since the 90s.

Many thanks in advance.

xylophone

https://www.gov.uk/voluntary-national-insurance-contributions/who-can-pay-voluntary-contributions

https://www.gov.uk/voluntary-national-insurance-contributions

CommyTooper

Sorry to hear your wife is one year short of a retirement, hope she gets well soon.

We have a similar situation here, so have put the money to buy off the shortfall in Premium Bonds. There will be no inflation shortfall to worry about, and who knows. We have been led to believe we have until the day that the state pension starts to pay up, if we’re wrong I hope one of you speaks up.

drumtochty

Lets keep it very simple and I assume you want the least expensive way to do it.

The purchase of Class 2 NI contributions has been extended to the 2018 2019 tax year.

Your good lady is approx £4 per week short of her highest amount of state pension.

Google registered as self employed.
Go through the process by say mid April 2018, do not put it off. She is now registered as self employed.

Nothing fancy either dog walking or ironing services or what ever she chooses.

Purchase a duplicate book for invoices and something cheap that will be used for the business, say a few dog leads.

Then a number of times during the year issue some invoices when services are provided.

There is no need for this amount to be that large.

April 6th 2019, she fills in her tax return and adds the page for Self Employed at the start of the process. Put in the amount earned less expenses, no need to go into detail. Tick the box that says she wants to pay Class 2 NI which is allowed even you have not earned £6,000 or so.

Finish the tax return and the system will inform her that she owes say £160 in Class 2 NI payments.

Pay it straight away and phone up the NI people and say she has paid the NI payments and can they transfer the money to credit her NI record, otherwise it will lie in a limbo state there for ages. Within a month or so her NI record for 2018 2019 will be updated.

Job done!!!!!!!!

Marvqn1

xylophone wrote: »

https://www.gov.uk/voluntary-national-insurance-contributions/who-can-pay-voluntary-contributions

https://www.gov.uk/voluntary-national-insurance-contributions

How do you find out what previous tax years your eligible to pay voluntary Class 2 National Insurance contributions for?

When I go on 'Check your National Insurance record', it goes to a page that says 'Tax options' and I don't see where it says what previous tax years I'm eligible to pay Class NICs for.

drumtochty

I believe that you can only pay Class 2 contributions these years if you are registered as self employed by the beginning of October in the first tax year you want to pay Class 2 contributions for.

Therefore if my reading is correct and if you have not been registered with HMRC as self employed in those years you could have a problem with paying the cheapo Class 2 NI contributions of circa £150 a year. You may have to pay voluntary Class 3 contributions of £730 a year or so.

xylophone

Find out if you have gaps by requesting your National Insurance record. Your record will tell you if you can pay voluntary contributions to fill gaps and how much it will cost you.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/feb/21/catching-up-missed-national-insurance-payments

But if you’d like the security of knowing you have 18 of your 35 years ‘banked’, and if HMRC knew about your self employment, you could pay £2.75 a week for each of the missing four years.”

Check with HMRC.

Marvqn1

drumtochty wrote: »

I believe that you can only pay Class 2 contributions these years if you are registered as self employed by the beginning of October in the first tax year you want to pay Class 2 contributions for.

Therefore if my reading is correct and if you have not been registered with HMRC as self employed in those years you could have a problem with paying the cheapo Class 2 NI contributions of circa £150 a year. You may have to pay voluntary Class 3 contributions of £730 a year or so.

I've been registered as self employed with HMRC since 2011. I've had a Small Earnings Exception certificate since 2014 although I'm not sure what years I would be eligible to pay voluntary Class 2 NICs for.

Is it best to request a printed National Insurance statement for this?