State pension data - worked in more trhan one country

srcandas

My wife is Spanish.  She worked in the UK 2010-2016.  The Spanish authorities say that they requested her PAYE info 1 year ago.  Not getting a reply they asked again 6 months ago.  No reply has ever been received.
The first person I spoke to at HMRC said that my wife, not being a UK passport holder, was unlikely to clear security.  For many years my wife had used the gateway but now it requests security clearance.  In any case HMRC agreed data from the gateway was unlikely to be accepted by a foreign authority.
After talking to two people at HMRC they offered I call: International Pension Centre.  However this number says that they are only handling two very specific types of query at the moment.  They offer no alternative route.    
Just thought someone here might have a suggestion.  My wife will now almost certainly lose 5000 Euros so this is hurting. Any help will be gratefully received.

Dazed_and_C0nfused

What is the question you want us to help with?

xylophone

 The Spanish authorities say that they requested her PAYE info 1 year ago. 

What is the question you want us to help with?

He wants HMRC to provide her PAYE/NI contributions information for the time she worked in UK?

https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/work/retire-abroad/state-pensions-abroad/index_en.htm

But above would seem to indicate that it is the Spanish authority that should be liaising with the UK authority?

srcandas

Yes it is the Spanish Authorities responsibility to request the information they need from HMRC.  The Spanish Authorities have requested we talk to HMRC.  Don't ask.  Spain is like that.
So we are between a rock and a hard place.
However after talking to 3 HMRC people I was led to a page from which I could send a message to Intenational Pension Centre.  They say they will reply in 10 working days.  That of course goes out the window at the moment (with so many expats requesting S1 forms), but hopefully in the new year they will catch up.  Anyway thanks for the thoughts so far.

nigelbb

When you have worked in more than one EU state you claim your pension from the last state in which you worked. They then exchange details of your contribution record on form E205 with the other states.
I worked in France for 15 years but returned to live in the UK about ten years ago. When I claimed my French pension at age 63 I submitted my application to the International Pension Centre. During the process I maximised my French pension by purchasing some added years of National Insurance contributions so I had a dialogue with the IPC & at my request they even sent me a copy of the E205 that they sent to France.

If your wife contributed in the UK 2010-2016 then be sure to maximise her UK pension by purchasing missing years of National Insurance contributions. Each added year costs about £800 but buys a pension of around £250 per year which given average life expectancy is worth an index-linked sum of over £5,000 in total.

srcandas

When you have worked in more than one EU state you claim your pension from the last state in which you worked. They then exchange details of your contribution record on form E205 with the other states.

Nigel tx for your comments.  But the problem is the lack of response to the E205.
I believe the pension can be initiated by the last country in which you worked (as you offered) but also a country where you have worked longest.  So if you did 34 years in the UK followed by 2 years in Italy, you could start the process from the UK.  That's my understanding but happy to be corrected.
As for buying extra years I believe this is restricted to you being UK resident.  Again happy to hear that corrected.
Cheers

xylophone

I believe the pension can be initiated by the last country in which you worked (as you offered) but also a country where you have worked longest.  

According to FAQ in link above:-
When the time comes for you to claim your pension, you normally have to apply in the country where you are living or in the country where you last worked. That country is then responsible for processing your claim and bringing together records of your pension contributions from all the countries you have lived in.

srcandas

An update:  The spanish authorities have confirmed by phone that they used E205 on both occassions.   
They added that despite Covid they were still working.  Odd as normally it is the Spanish who are overloaded with bureaucracy,      

nigelbb

srcandas said:

When you have worked in more than one EU state you claim your pension from the last state in which you worked. They then exchange details of your contribution record on form E205 with the other states.

Nigel tx for your comments.  But the problem is the lack of response to the E205.
I believe the pension can be initiated by the last country in which you worked (as you offered) but also a country where you have worked longest.  So if you did 34 years in the UK followed by 2 years in Italy, you could start the process from the UK.  That's my understanding but happy to be corrected.
As for buying extra years I believe this is restricted to you being UK resident.  Again happy to hear that corrected.
Cheers

You definitely do not need to be a UK resident to purchase extra years. In fact you aren't purchasing extra years you are making voluntary National Insurance contributions. The form at the back of the leaflet NI38 "Social Security abroad" allows you to continue to pay NI contributions when you move abroad but these voluntary contributions can also be made retrospectively. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/social-security-abroad-ni38

nigelbb

j.p said:

Right. I don't know about Spain, but I think that the UK 'looks' at someone's contributions made abroad to check whether they're eligible for the State Pension, but it does not pay them those years.
Say the UK State Pension needs 35 years for you to get the full pension (under new rules) and you can only get any pension if you've contributed 10 or more. Now, if you've worked in an European country some years they add those to the years you worked in UK to see if you're eligible, but they do not pay them.  E.g., if you've worked 9 years in UK and none abroad you get no UK State Pension pension (leaving aside other factors). If you've worked 9 years in UK and 26 abroad, the UK government will acknowledge that you've worked 10 years overall or more, but only pay you for the 9 you've worked here. So you get 9/35ths of the UK State Pension.
I assume thus that a person seeking to obtain a UK State Pension on that basis will also want to seek to get a pension from the country she worked in abroad, or her UK pension alone would be too small to sustain them. And I assume it'd be OK to seek a pension from that other country also, as their contributions there would still be available for them to draw on, and OK to have two state pensions from different countries. Otherwise, if I had to assume that upon retiring in the UK first the UK government would import those contributions from that other country and deplete them, that'd be a sad state of affairs, that just in order to get a 9-year pension from the UK you forfeited one worth 26 years elsewhere. I'm inclined to think the UK government only enquiries about those contributions, but does not import them into the UK. Although this is only my reasoning; I do not know for sure. If it was like this you could still retire additionally with 26 years on that other country.
I know of course that your case is different. You want to make UK contributions count for a pension your wife will take elsewhere. But my point is, that if the UK can get away with checking overseas contributions only in order to check entitlement but not pay them, what's to say that other country isn't going to work just the same? Will you be sure her foreign pension will be worth more if you provide info about her past UK contributions, as opposed to her not declaring them? And in either case - whether her foreign pension will be worth more of the same - what will happen to her UK contributions? Could they be made use of to claim a second State Pension from the UK, or would they be gone (i.e., exported and depleted)?
And if you were to make additional voluntary contributions in the UK as well, what will be the fate of those?
And will the Brexit Deal recently signed change anything in this regard at all, that wasn't already going to be like that before Brexit? The deal talks about it in its Protocol of Social Security Coordination, Title III, Chapter 5, pages 1151-58, but I mostly do not understand it… Though I do understand the opening gambit, Article SSC.45, Paragraph 1, "All institutions shall determine entitlement to benefit when a request has been submitted, unless the person concerned expressly requests deferment of one or more States" (emphasis mine). Which might sound like a warning that unless you explicitly choose to partly defer, the system may set itself in motion for you with no option to change the particulars for any one country later.

Some of the above is just plain wrong. You get the pension separately from each country where you contributed & the amount depends on the amount of your contributions in each country. However if there is any calculation regarding number of years worked then the total years from all countries are aggregated. As an example in France you can retire from age 63 onwards with a reduced pension. You get a full pension at age 67 or when you have contributed 165 trimesters (quarters) ie just over 41 years. If you worked in both France & the UK then years that you made National Insurance contributions in the UK are counted towards those 165 trimestres.

The Brexit deal allows the above to continue as before so those retiring in the future who have contributed in both the UK & EU will have their years of contributions in other states recognised.

nigelbb

j.p said:

nigelbb said:

j.p said:

Right. I don't know about Spain, but I think that the UK 'looks' at someone's contributions made abroad to check whether they're eligible for the State Pension, but it does not pay them those years.
Say the UK State Pension needs 35 years for you to get the full pension (under new rules) and you can only get any pension if you've contributed 10 or more. Now, if you've worked in an European country some years they add those to the years you worked in UK to see if you're eligible, but they do not pay them.  E.g., if you've worked 9 years in UK and none abroad you get no UK State Pension pension (leaving aside other factors). If you've worked 9 years in UK and 26 abroad, the UK government will acknowledge that you've worked 10 years overall or more, but only pay you for the 9 you've worked here. So you get 9/35ths of the UK State Pension.
I assume thus that a person seeking to obtain a UK State Pension on that basis will also want to seek to get a pension from the country she worked in abroad, or her UK pension alone would be too small to sustain them. And I assume it'd be OK to seek a pension from that other country also, as their contributions there would still be available for them to draw on, and OK to have two state pensions from different countries. Otherwise, if I had to assume that upon retiring in the UK first the UK government would import those contributions from that other country and deplete them, that'd be a sad state of affairs, that just in order to get a 9-year pension from the UK you forfeited one worth 26 years elsewhere. I'm inclined to think the UK government only enquiries about those contributions, but does not import them into the UK. Although this is only my reasoning; I do not know for sure. If it was like this you could still retire additionally with 26 years on that other country.
I know of course that your case is different. You want to make UK contributions count for a pension your wife will take elsewhere. But my point is, that if the UK can get away with checking overseas contributions only in order to check entitlement but not pay them, what's to say that other country isn't going to work just the same? Will you be sure her foreign pension will be worth more if you provide info about her past UK contributions, as opposed to her not declaring them? And in either case - whether her foreign pension will be worth more of the same - what will happen to her UK contributions? Could they be made use of to claim a second State Pension from the UK, or would they be gone (i.e., exported and depleted)?
And if you were to make additional voluntary contributions in the UK as well, what will be the fate of those?
And will the Brexit Deal recently signed change anything in this regard at all, that wasn't already going to be like that before Brexit? The deal talks about it in its Protocol of Social Security Coordination, Title III, Chapter 5, pages 1151-58, but I mostly do not understand it… Though I do understand the opening gambit, Article SSC.45, Paragraph 1, "All institutions shall determine entitlement to benefit when a request has been submitted, unless the person concerned expressly requests deferment of one or more States" (emphasis mine). Which might sound like a warning that unless you explicitly choose to partly defer, the system may set itself in motion for you with no option to change the particulars for any one country later.

Some of the above is just plain wrong. You get the pension separately from each country where you contributed & the amount depends on the amount of your contributions in each country. However if there is any calculation regarding number of years worked then the total years from all countries are aggregated. As an example in France you can retire from age 63 onwards with a reduced pension. You get a full pension at age 67 or when you have contributed 165 trimesters (quarters) ie just over 41 years. If you worked in both France & the UK then years that you made National Insurance contributions in the UK are counted towards those 165 trimestres.

The Brexit deal allows the above to continue as before so those retiring in the future who have contributed in both the UK & EU will have their years of contributions in other states recognised.

The fact that France imports pension years (if what you're saying is correct) doesn't mean the UK does -- it probably does not (though it enquiries how many there were), and it won't pay them either. I know that for certain (and I'd appreciate the input of people who've retired in the UK after working in Europe and the UK wouldn't pay them their European years, to confirm what I'm saying).
Every EU country pension regime is different, and documents that collate particulars for every country run into hundreds of pages.
And this isn't answering whether Spain does import contributions and pays them, though it seems to be implying it does.
As to the phrase "some of the above is just wrong". First, it is imprecise, as it doesn't point out what's wrong. Therefore it is of reduced value. And second, it fails to differentiate things I'm claiming are facts and things I'm saying are my opinion. I can be wrong with facts, but not with opinion - my opinion may simply be uninformed, until the right facts arrive and are learnt, and it then turns into quoted facts. Saying someone's opinions are wrong without showing the facts is of reduced value.

No other state "imports" contributions but they do recognise contributions in other states when it comes to totalling up numbers of years when contributions have been made. France doesn't "import" pension years it just counts years worked in other EU countries (& the UK) when totalling up the number of years worked as this is a consideration when calculating when a pension can be taken at full rate. The UK will also count years when contributions were made in other states when as in the example earlier in the thread if you haven't contributed the minimum 10 years in the UK to qualify for a pension then your years contributing in other EU states are counted so if you worked nine years in the UK & 31 years in France you would get 9/10 of a minimum UK state pension.

Each pension is claimed from & paid separately by each state. The amount of contributions in another state are only relevant for the pension from that state but the very fact that you have contributed for x years in another state may be taken into account when calculating your pension.

All the above is fact not opinion. I worked in France & the UK so have pensions from both countries which I claimed in the UK so have personal experience of what is involved.