National Insurance - Year is not full - Is it amount paid or time worked???

Anneli

I have been checking up on National Insurance Contributions that I need to pay to qualify for full pension. Although I have 44 contributing years,  because I was working as a teacher for some of these  ( have now retired aged 61 ) some of them don't count as I was 'opted out'  so I need to pay for a few more years through voluntary contribution.  

When checking my NI contributions it says one year didn't qualify as it was not a full year and that I had only paid £6.41 in paid employment.   The year in question was 1979/80. I was in full time education until June 1979. I started full time work and earned a monthly salary from July 1979 until end of tax year  - approx. 9 months, so am unsure why I wouldn't have paid enough NI to qualify for the year.   My annual salary was £3,492 so I worked out that from July 1979 to End March 1980 I would have earned £2619  or £291 per month  gross  which I am sure was significantly higher than the lower earnings NI limit at the time.

As it was so long ago,  I am pretty sure I don't have the P60 or pay slips from that time.  I know I wasn't working for the full year but I would have been earning more than weekly lower earnings.  Just wondering whether anyone  could suggest  how I might prove this income or whether the advisor I spoke to today was right when he said because I didn't work for 3 months of that year it could not be classified as a full year.  I thought it was the amount paid not the time worked - perhaps I'm wrong? Obviously if I could claim for this year I could save myself over £800 which would be a real bonus!

Dazed_and_C0nfused

This seems to say the current rules were also relevant to 1979:80.

https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/national-insurance-manual/nim25001

No idea what your chances of getting the current status changed are but are you 100% certain it would actually change your starting amount calculated in 2016?

molerat

It is a combination, either / and / or.  You need 52 weeks earnings at above LEL to get a full year.  If you have not got that then if you have an income of 52 x LEL by combining all earnings per pay period where you earn above the LEL but below the UEL then you will get a full year.

QrizB

Anneli said:

Although I have 44 contributing years ...

If you have 44 contributing years, and it's now 2022, at least 36 of those were before 2016.

It's quite likely that extra pre-2016 years won't change your current state pension entitlement.

p00hsticks

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

No idea what your chances of getting the current status changed are but are you 100% certain it would actually change your starting amount calculated in 2016?

Good call! As the OP says they have 44 years now, they must have had at least 35 in April 2016, which means that any pre-2016 years wouldn't actually increase their new State Pension 'starting amount'.

So OP, it's really not worth wasting any more effort on looking into that particular year any further.  

Anneli

Thank you all for your comments and helpful advice - much appreciated...