Guide discussion: Voluntary national insurance contributions

molerat

Yes, it is as simple as you needing 4 more years to get there.  If you are going to work for another 4 years then there is nothing more you need to do. There is no point in filling gaps.

donglefan

I asked the Revenue to backdate my self-employment registration to 2013 so I could pay NI at class 2 back to 2013, as until I learnt about filling in NI for pension, I'd not realised it was useful to register and hadn't earnt enough to need to do so.   They asked me for proof of self-employment so I sent them my accounts back to 2013 on the self-employment pages.  I also enclosed a copy of the legislation that molerat linked to which states the extension on the time for backdating NI payments of either class.

I have received a reply which doesn't make sense to me.  They seem to have only accepted registration from 2017, and also say that years 2013-15 are time-barred (which I don't think they are until July 31st, according to headline news which surely the HMRC staff are aware of.)
They also quote tax years as single years so that I don't know if, for example, their "2017" means 2016/17 or 2017/18.
I would welcome help detangling this.

donglefan

After 1 hour 47 mins on the phone, I have some answers to the above, but not all answers.

2017 tax year means the tax year *starting in 2017.

The 2016 issue has been fixed, but the excuses/ reasons why I cannot pay at class 2 for 2013, 2014 or 2015 were unclear and sounded made-up.    I was told Class 2 was time barred prior to 2016, although topping up at Class 3 would be available to me until 31st July.   
I quoted the NIC manual reference and legislation that molerat refers to in support of being able to pay these years at Class 2 and was told that I did not qualify to be able to pay Class 2 for those years because I did not have Small Earnings Exemption for those years.   I asked how that could be possible because my total earnings were just a few hundred pounds per tax year for those three years, so how small did earnings have to be to qualify for small earnings exemption?   
First I was told it was because I had income from letting a property for those years (around £6k profit per tax year) and that took my income above the Small Earnings Exemption threshold.  I explained that the letting was nothing to do with my business, and is not classified or filed under business income and was told this was a 'grey area.' 
Then I pointed out that I have the same letting income from 2016 onwards, for which Class 2 payments are being permitted.
So then I was told that because I did not apply for a Small Earnings Exemption when filling my tax returns for those years, I cannot pay at Class 2 for them. It seemed to me like one excuse after another, and I wonder how I can challenge this so I can pay for 2013, 2014, 2015 at Class 2 rather than Class 3?

Suhusa

Their letters can be confusing. I've got a good enough grasp of English (as a German) that my English colleagues asked me to proof-read their reports, and yet when I got the letter in response to CF83 I wasn't quite sure whether they'd accepted my request to pay Class 2 from overseas. It was just one ill-fitting sentence after another, clicked together seemingly randomly - caveats that related to sentences that weren't there and stuff like that. I certainly wouldn't have got that jumble of sentences through as a report at work.

SwiftSuzie

donglefan said:

I asked the Revenue to backdate my self-employment registration to 2013 so I could pay NI at class 2 back to 2013, as until I learnt about filling in NI for pension, I'd not realised it was useful to register and hadn't earnt enough to need to do so.   They asked me for proof of self-employment so I sent them my accounts back to 2013 on the self-employment pages.  I also enclosed a copy of the legislation that molerat linked to which states the extension on the time for backdating NI payments of either class.

I have received a reply which doesn't make sense to me.  They seem to have only accepted registration from 2017, and also say that years 2013-15 are time-barred (which I don't think they are until July 31st, according to headline news which surely the HMRC staff are aware of.)
They also quote tax years as single years so that I don't know if, for example, their "2017" means 2016/17 or 2017/18.
I would welcome help detangling this.

That letter looks really odd to me. I've never seen tax years officially referred to by one year rather than 2016/17 for example. Obviously those earlier years are not time barred at the moment. I've had an offer from them to purchase Class2 from 2006/07 to date in the past week. I would say though that my circumstances are different. I am abroad and I have no knowledge of this small earnings exemption of which you speak, so perhaps you need to do more research on that angle. 

donglefan

Earlier this year I was told at first I could not pay class 2 for pre-2010 years on the basis that I'd not ticked a specific box when filling my returns for those years.  It turned out to be wrong and I was allowed those years at class 2 after citing molerat's NIM document, so I am dubious about the same kind of concept being rolled out again yesterday regarding the not having applied for small earnings exemptions on the returns.  The difficulty is, when you are given imprecise reasons for denying anything, how do you appeal against them?  It's like combatting a marshmallow.

Sarahspangles

donglefan said:

Earlier this year I was told at first I could not pay class 2 for pre-2010 years on the basis that I'd not ticked a specific box when filling my returns for those years.  It turned out to be wrong and I was allowed those years at class 2 after citing molerat's NIM document, so I am dubious about the same kind of concept being rolled out again yesterday regarding the not having applied for small earnings exemptions on the returns.  The difficulty is, when you are given imprecise reasons for denying anything, how do you appeal against them?  It's like combatting a marshmallow.

It seems odd that they are saying there’s a block in the middle of the range of years where you can’t pay contributions, considering they allowed this for an earlier period.

There are some scenarios where HMRC limit retrospective changes going back more than seven years. They can’t come after you for unpaid tax, for example (I remember this because a few years ago my then OH knew he owed a chunk of tax for something and spent five years twitching every time a brown/official envelope came through the door).

Woodman_of_Surrey

how on earth are we going to find out our forecast? The website is permanently down, (been trying for weeks 'sorry there is a problem with is page') get cut off on the phone, been trying for weeks at various times of the day. Anyone got any ideas how to get a response from them? At this rate they are going to have to extend the deadline till 2024!

p00hsticks

Woodman_of_Surrey said:

how on earth are we going to find out our forecast? The website is permanently down, (been trying for weeks 'sorry there is a problem with is page') 

I've just checked and the website (presuming you mean the 'Check your State Pension Forecast' via the Government Gateway) works fine for me. Have you tried accessing it on a different device ?
Check your State Pension forecast - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

pinnks

Just checked and the link posted works fine for me.  Woodman_of_surrey may need to clear their browser of cookies etc, or try a different browser on the same device if they do not have access to a second device