No NI credits for say at home Mum, not claiming child benefit. 2004-2010. Anyone Else out there?

DHarvey68

Hi. I was at home looking after my 2 sons  for this 6 year period. As I am getting towards thinking of retiring I checked my National insurance record, and was concerned to see these gaps in  credits. We didn't claim Child benefit at the time as my husband earned over the wage threshold and it would cost us more in tax. 

I've spent the last month trying to contact the Future Pensions team on .gov.uk HMRC. I get so far and then they cut me off. Today I've made a complaint about this, and that I've been penalised for being a stay at home Mum during this period. 

Anyone else affected out there? Can we get together to put pressure on HMRC / flag this problem publicly?

TIA!

Dawn.

House_owner

You have not been penalised, you could have still filled out the claim form, but then opted out of getting the child benefit payments, and then you would have got the national insurance credits. 
See this, (copied and pasted out of this website : https://www.gov.uk/child-benefit-tax-charge

If you choose to opt out of getting Child Benefit payments

You should still fill in the Child Benefit claim form. You need to state on the form that you do not want to get payments.

You need to fill in the claim form if you want to:

• get National Insurance credits, which count towards your State Pension
• get your child a National Insurance number without them having to apply for one - they’ll usually get the number before they turn 16 years old

mark5

Also you wouldn’t get credits for children over the age of 12 if this applies.

Janie2008

mark5 said:

Also you wouldn’t get credits for children over the age of 12 if this applies.

I think back then it went up to 16 but I didn't think it was means tested so don't understand why she didn't claim. 

MEM62

DHarvey68 said:

Today I've made a complaint about this, and that I've been penalised for being a stay at home Mum during this period. 

Penalised? How?  There is no penalty for being a stay at home mum and you could have claimed the NI credits at the time had you chosen to.  

molerat

HICBC was not introduced until January 2013.

artyboy

molerat said:

HICBC was not introduced until January 2013.

I thought I was going senile for a moment, as I was sure we had claimed during this period despite both of us being way over the threshold! Perhaps the OP has her years mixed up but in any event she unfortunately has no basis for a complaint, much less any claim...

DHarvey68

Thanks for the responses. If I had known I had to fill in this form  to get benefit and decline payments at the time I would have done so. 

What I’d like to know what I can do now? How am I to be credited for my national insurance for this period? 

Thank you. 

molerat

HICBC did not come in to effect until after the period you are missing the years,  there must have been some other reason you were not claiming.  Are you sure your OH was not claiming it ?  If it was not claimed there is likely nothing you can do apart fro pay for those years.

xylophone

2004-2010.

Was the period when Home Responsibilities Protection applied.

See https://www.gov.uk/home-responsibilities-protection-hrp

There was no HICBC in those years - CB could be claimed regardless of the income of either parent.

DHarvey68

Hi, thank you for coming back to me. no my OH didn’t. 

I’m sure it was for tax reasons even then. I contacted Child benefit and they said they only have records for I think maybe 6 years. All the old stuff was was destroyed when it was all computerised. I don’t remember signing any for to be registered and yet decline payment. We got the payments for a few years before my OH got the higher wages. 

Anyone got any helpful tips on where to go from here? 

Thank you