Unable to pay for voluntary national insurance before the cutoff date

bailsinbarnsley

... and xylophone, I've asked the poster above who said "In under an hour the power of MSE forumites have directed me on how to sort this, I've made a call, got the reference number in under 20 minutes" which department they called and on what telephone number.

molerat

bailsinbarnsley said:

Thanks, I have tried to answer all the questions below. I don't expect to be able to get a full pension but any increase on £148 pw would be good.

How many years do you hold pre 2016 ?

According to the records they hold for me: I have: 35 years of full contributions and 15 years when I did not contribute enough

That is the deciding factor whether pre 2016 years are available / worth paying.

According to the records they hold for me:

All of the years from 2008 to 2021 are not full but it says I can pay £824.20 for each of these years by 5 April 2023.

2007 to 2008 Year is not full. National Insurance credits: 9 weeks. I can make up the shortfall by paying a voluntary contribution of £681.55 by 5 April 2023. 

2006 to 2007 was my last full year.

I was living in France with my parents from 2007 to 2017 but unable to work because I had a debilitating stroke when I was 50.

Were you in a final salary contracted out pension scheme ? Yes I worked for Royal Mail for 35 years and was contracted out for several years.

I fully understand why (and do not think you are being nosy) you are asking there very relevant questions. Any assistance on fathoming the above would be greatly appreciated. 

In that case only years from 2016-17 will add value to your pension, pre 2016 years can be paid but will add nothing.  The only one therefore that has some urgency is 2016-17 as that ceases to be available at April although the majority will increase to £907.40 from then.

p00hsticks

bailsinbarnsley said:

How many years do you hold pre 2016 ?

According to the records they hold for me: I have: 35 years of full contributions and 15 years when I did not contribute enough

So if you have 35 full years prior to 2016 then there is no point in buying any years prior to that date, as they will not increase your pension amonut any further (the calculation of your starting amount done in April 2016 used a maximum of 30 years for the calculation under the old rules and 35 under the new, so having more than 35 would make no difference to either calculatino and therfore your starting amount).

There is also no point in buying anything for tax year 2021-22, as you say you reache state pension age that tax year, and so it won't be included in any state pension calculation. 

That leaves you with the five years 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-2019,2019-20 and 2020-21, which will each add £5.29 to your current amount, taking you from your current £143.39 to £169.84. I think that's the best you're gonig to be able to do.

You only have until the start of April to pay for year 2016-17. You do have longer to pay the others, as you can go back 6 years, but it's not in your interest to delay, as you are already claiming you state pension and I donlt believe they'll backdate any increase due to making voluntary contributions now. 

As molerat has pointed out, having already reached SPA, there may be some additional hoops that you have to go through to ensure that DWP are aware of you having bought additional years, and recalculating your pension entitlement as a result, but I don't think this will prevent you from actually purchasing the years from HMRC before the window closes and then following up. 

  

bailsinbarnsley

That is what I had expected you would say from your previous comments. However, will I also be able to pay the Voluntary NI contributions for the 4 years 2017 to 2021 and increase my state pension? That's what I did for my wife and it increased hers by just over £5 a week by paying £4,891 for 6 years contributions. If I can, I would be paying £4,092.40 for only for 5 years NI contributions.

bailsinbarnsley

Thanks p00hsticks, you guys are all wonderful and focusing on what I was thinking I would need to do. I think an improvement from £143.39 to £169.84 per week is not fantastic but still a decent return on £4k (if I live long enough). However, I must mention that, like you thought, I didn't think they would backdate the increase payment (as it says that on their previous calculation letter) but my wife received an additional £684 in the bank today and she's only been receiving her pension since August 2022.

Audaxer

bailsinbarnsley said:

However, will I also be able to pay the Voluntary NI contributions for the 4 years 2017 to 2021 and increase my state pension? That's what I did for my wife and it increased hers by just over £5 a week by paying £4,891 for 6 years contributions. If I can, I would be paying £4,092.40 for only for 5 years NI contributions.

Unless I'm misunderstanding something, I think that is what p00hsticks said in the post above - that you can pay the 5 tax years from 2016 to 2021 to increase your State Pension by £5.29 per week for each of these years.

bailsinbarnsley

You are correct Audaxer, but I wrote my comments at 4.11 before I read p00hsticks post at 4.25

bailsinbarnsley

SUCCESS! Thank you to everyone who has come to my aid. Today I have phoned 0300 200 3500 and after 40 minutes I had obtained an 18 digit reference number I used to send them the payment from my bank. The lovely Geordie lady I spoke to said there were several other ways to send them the money without the code but I used that method because I'd recently used it for my wife's NI payment. The first and important question she asked me was "what years are you paying for" and after we agreed how much it would cost, it went ahead within minutes. As she had all my NI details in front of her, she agreed that paying for any more years would not increase my pension. All of this was because the people on here gave me the correct information I needed (based on my age, NI payments, history I provided) to sidestep the long wait of the letter from HMRC which I no longer need. My weekly pension will go up from £143 to £170 per week, which is an increase of around £1,400 per year.
THANKS AGAIN. I am very happy.