State Pension missing years

DairyQueen

drumtochty wrote: »

I did not advise him of his loss of state pension SSP as that would not help the situation and he still thinks that he beat HMRC by not paying HMRC NI contributions.
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Luckily, my husband is an accountant

I'm amazed that neither your friend, nor his accountant, knew the basics about optimising director remuneration. I spent around 30 mins on the web and gleaned sufficient to know roughly which direction to take (and why).

I agree; best to leave him in blissful ignorance as there isn't anything he can do about it now.

drumtochty

To be honest Dairy Queen, I think you and I and some forum members are NI Junkies, the vast majority of one and two person Limited Company directors I have come accros in the construction and process operation industries do not have a clue about NI although there is plenty of info on the WEB but very few appear to use it.


One thing that is not realy well known is that say you have no earnings April to December in a tax year and your Limited Company is not registered until January 1st, you still have your full £11,850 PAYE personal allowance to use prior to paying tax. The same director can only have a payment of 13/52 of the NI primary threshold before they pay NI in that case approx £2,100 against the full years allowance of approx £8,400 but lets get back to talking pensions.

cns06

Thread update time.... its taken me nearly a year to get to this point but here we go.

Firstly, I have managed to get this down from 10 missing years to 6 by doing "earlier year updates" with HMRC.

So I now have 6 years to sort out.

I wrote to HMRC 3 times with copies of my SA302s in the last 2 months and they claimed that they did not receive any of them.... but now finally they have.

Their reply is to fill in a statement of employee for each missing year.

My only issue with this are the following questions on the form:

1) Did you receive a P60? My answer is no, my accountant looked after my PAYE (apparently!) and I assume he kept it on file. But does that mean yes, as in yes it was generated but no I don't have a copy? He passed away in the new year so I have no easy way to access my records. I have asked the firm (which is now winding up as it was a one man band) but they have said as this was so long ago (12 years) they doubt they have any info and they are snowed under with requests since he passed so they basically saying they cant even look?? How should I word this on the form?

2) Were you paid monthly or weekly or yearly? My answer is I don't know?! Again my accountant would look after my PAYE. I cant ask him as he is dead. As far as I know he would do the return at the end of the year and declare my PAYE then. Does this mean I was paid annually? My SA302 shows my PAYE and I already sent them copies of this. I was paid a monthly sum most moths if business was ok however this was more than my PAYE as there was an element of dividend in there. So not sure if I put monthly either?

Thanks in advance for any replies!

drumtochty

A few things that in your case you may not like.


It is your responsibility to inform HMRC of your employent status and payments in law not your accountant who you decided to do it through. Therefore back to you!



It was your accountants responsibility to keep records for his clients dealings and even he is dead, his proffessional insurance assuming he has paid his insurance premiums to recompence you if that accountant has not provided the information to you.


I would write a recorded delivery letter to those winding up his business to advise them of the information you need and inform them you intend to take legal steps to get the information. They are basically assuming that people will just say OK I will not take this further. In your case you have to up the the stakes on this to stop them being able to wind up the business without you getting your data.


With regards to the question of you being paid monthly. Go through your bank statements and if you not get payment into your account every month and it is your job to do that, the answer to that question is clear to me.

nigelbb

The good news is that as you are in your early forties & won't draw a pension until your late sixties that you have plenty of time to pay the remaining fifteen years contributions that you will need for a full pension.

cns06

nigelbb wrote: »

The good news is that as you are in your early forties & won't draw a pension until your late sixties that you have plenty of time to pay the remaining fifteen years contributions that you will need for a full pension.

Thanks, although I intend to stop work in 3 years. So will be doing VCs after that!

cns06

drumtochty wrote: »

A few things that in your case you may not like.


It is your responsibility to inform HMRC of your employent status and payments in law not your accountant who you decided to do it through. Therefore back to you!

Not sure I get where you are coming from there. HMRC have been informed the whole way, I have been doing SA since 2003. My PAYE on the other hand was dealt with by an accountant which, being a non expert here, is no different than someone who works for ABC PLC having their PAYE dealt with by ABC PLC accounts dept..

drumtochty wrote: »

It was your accountants responsibility to keep records for his clients dealings and even he is dead, his proffessional insurance assuming he has paid his insurance premiums to recompence you if that accountant has not provided the information to you.

I agree and this is a route I am considering however my accountant was a close family friend and I would only do this as a last resort. HMRC are not asking for my P60 they are just asking was I issued one. The answer is I don't know?

drumtochty wrote: »

With regards to the question of you being paid monthly. Go through your bank statements and if you not get payment into your account every month and it is your job to do that, the answer to that question is clear to me.

Don't understand what you are saying sorry but I guess I just tick monthly and enclose yet another copy of my SA302..

nigelbb

cns06 wrote: »

Thanks, although I intend to stop work in 3 years. So will be doing VCs after that!

Voluntary NI contributions are a bargain at about £700 for each year earning about £4.80 per week pension i.e. you only have to draw your pension for under three years & you are quids in.