National Insurance Credits with No Child Benefits

molerat

Do you actually need to fill those years ?  The new rules coming in later will be retrospective so if you have enough years going forward there's no need to pay now. If you post up the following from your forecast someone will talk you through it

Current weekly £££.pp amount accrued up to April 2024.
Number of full NI years 15-16 and earlier
Number of full NI years 16-17 and later
Tax year you reach state retirement
Any COPE amount.  If you have "You've been in a contracted-out pension scheme" on your forecast then click
here https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/check-your-state-pension/account/cope whilst logged into your tax account

beebettybee

I am also in the same position. My first child was born in 2012 and I have an 11 year NI gap which will cost me around £9000 to fill in, although I was actually entitled to them in the first place but didn’t realise this as my husband had a high income. By no means is it clear that you should fill in a child benefit form regardless if you’re entitled to it or not! Why would you fill it in when you’re clearly above the threshold? How were we supposed to know that there was a little box we needed to tick to say we are not claiming benefits on a child benefit form, it’s just to go through the motion so we can still get our NI credits to go towards our state pension. Who would know?! 

I now have 4 days to either pay £9k or risk losing it all if in 2026 they decide that we can backdate it. The pension line can’t help, the child benefit line can’t help as forms need to be filled in, and the outcome from that won’t come around anytime soon I’m sure. Contacting my MP won’t help either at this stage as I won’t get a response in time, although I will still try. I really don’t know what to do! 

I have taken 11 years out to raise my children, not claimed a penny from the state and in return I have to pay £9k or work an extra 11 years plus additional years to reach the minimum requirement to qualify for my full pension, all because of an unticked box. 

Any advice would be really appreciated incase I’ve missed anything!