Guide discussion: Voluntary national insurance contributions

QrizB

Johnny.99 said:

Should we not still be able to make payments to close gaps today? There option is no longer there.

The IT system has encountered a bug. I think it's still a "beta" so a work-in-progress, so this isn't unexpected.

CreamSlice

I am waiting for a call back to fill some of my gaps, but now the price of filling these Nic's has increased will I be able to pay the prices that they were when I wanted to pay originally, when I registered for the call back.

molerat

CreamSlice said:

I am waiting for a call back to fill some of my gaps, but now the price of filling these Nic's has increased will I be able to pay the prices that they were when I wanted to pay originally, when I registered for the call back.

Yes, the clock has been stopped at 5 April for those that registered for a call back.

Muttleythefrog

Well they may have screwed up their system but impressively my wife's 7 years of voluntary contributions made on the last day available (for some years) have today been updated on her NI record. I was expecting it to take months (rather than 3 working days) given the circumstances and fact she's way off retirement age.

Wishfulthinker

Not sure if this is permitted or not - I’ll press on.
My wife, like thousands of others, followed the advice of our sage guru. She logged on and checked her forecasted State Pension, unsurprisingly she was a number of years short. She made a decision, last year, to use £5700 of her voluntary redundancy payment to purchase the missing NI payments, solely to ensure she received that FULL pension.
Role forward approx 8 months and after a bout of poor health, she is diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma! The prognosis is a disappointing at 12 months max - she is 58 years old.
We are both over the initial shock and are in the practical stage. Unless there is a major miracle, that we both pray for, there is zero chance of her drawing her state pension. She’d like her money back to enable her to enjoy the months ahead.

Not interested in sympathy (past all that), just need positive, practical advise.
Thank you.

Dazed_and_C0nfused

Wishfulthinker said:

Not sure if this is permitted or not - I’ll press on.
My wife, like thousands of others, followed the advice of our sage guru. She logged on and checked her forecasted State Pension, unsurprisingly she was a number of years short. She made a decision, last year, to use £5700 of her voluntary redundancy payment to purchase the missing NI payments, solely to ensure she received that FULL pension.
Role forward approx 8 months and after a bout of poor health, she is diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma! The prognosis is a disappointing at 12 months max - she is 58 years old.
We are both over the initial shock and are in the practical stage. Unless there is a major miracle, that we both pray for, there is zero chance of her drawing her state pension. She’d like her money back to enable her to enjoy the months ahead.

Not interested in sympathy (past all that), just need positive, practical advise.
Thank you.

I think it's a no.

https://community.hmrc.gov.uk/customerforums/ni/f2c643d2-e557-ef11-b4ac-6045bd0d2749

pecunianonolet

What are the timelines or where can one find out how long it will take HMRC to allocate paid class 2 and 3 payments to the NI record? 

Payments were made early April by FP so I am aware it's been only ca 5 weeks and HMRC quotes to get in touch if not allocated after 8 weeks. However, I think they have a large backlog. 

blobthebuilder

A day after I’d more or less given up on receiving a follow-up call from the DWP I received a letter from them telling me that in exchange for making a payment for £2472.60 (3 years @ £824.20) I could add £19.74 to my weekly state pension. The letter didn’t mention the phrase “contracted out” once, but since they confirmed that I had 40 qualifying years and people who haven’t been contracted out require only 35 years of NI contributions to get the full new state pension, I assume what I’m paying for relates to the time I was contracted out.

I was rather puzzled by this paragraph in their letter:

“You will pay any voluntary contributions to HMRC. HMRC will confirm if you are eligible to pay, the cost of each individual tax year and advise how to pay. You can contact HMRC on 0300 200 3500”.

Hasn’t the DWP confirmed in their letter that I am eligible to pay and told me the cost of each year? Is HMRC expected to corroborate what the DWP has said?

I’ve calculated that I’ll need to survive to beyond the age of 75 to gain any benefit, but as I’m in average health now, it’s a gamble I’ve decided to take. So it seems the next thing I need to do is get an 18 digit reference number from HMRC in order to pay them the money. The government’s website says that if I do not have an 18 digit reference number I can pay using the ‘Check your State Pension forecast service’ but clicking on the link tells me that I cannot use this payment route because I am already receiving my state pension. MSE’s guide says that if you can’t use the online service they can give you the number over the phone, via their webchat service, or by post. If you use their webchat service it tells to click on ‘speak to an adviser’, which I suspect will be as productive as ringing them up, waiting on the line for nearly an hour and then being disconnected.

Has anyone succeeded in actually talking to someone at HMRC about this, or getting a response from using ‘speak to an adviser’ via webchat? I would use the postal route to avoid the interminable waits and expense of trying to ring HMRC, but in my experience they don’t answer letters either. A totally useless organisation paid for by taxpayers.

fiveyearplan

My  husband is in a similar position.  He is already receiving his state pension but has decided to plug the gap.  He made contact by the cut off date and we have been waiting to hear back from the Pension Service.  He did receive a text message to say that if he contacted them by the deadline (which he did) he would be able to pay to plug the gap but the text had no more information and I assumed we are waiting to get a letter with the amount and a payment link or telling him how he can pay.  Should he try and make contact again or are we still supposed to wait to hear from them?

QrizB

blobthebuilder said:

... since they confirmed that I had 40 qualifying years and people who haven’t been contracted out require only 35 years of NI contributions to get the full new state pension

What makes you think that?

blobthebuilder said:

I assume what I’m paying for relates to the time I was contracted out.

You are not paying for years when you were contracted out. Years that you were contracted out will already be full.
You will be paying for years where you weren't paying NI at all.

blobthebuilder said:

Has anyone succeeded in actually talking to someone at HMRC about this, or getting a response from using ‘speak to an adviser’ via webchat?

Yes, there are plenty of reports on this forum of people getting their magic number from HMRC.