Engineering an erratic salary to reduce NI bill?

Dazed_and_C0nfused

A16XJD said:

If anyones interested, this ultimately seemed to work as intended,

The vast majority of my pension contributions i did in just a small number of months (to eat into the amount paid at higher NI rates) & then i ensured i kept pension contributions to a minimum in the months i recieved bonuses (where i would inevitably go into the 2%NI range).

It's all showing up on the gov site as a 'full NI year' even though it's taken over £1k off my NI bill paid vs prior years.

If you were allowed to go under NMW on a temporary basis (allowing it to be assessed over the whole tax year) you'd be able to hit this one a lot harder though. Shame

You don't have to pay any NI to gain a qualifying year.  Earning £123/week throughout the year is sufficient.

A16XJD

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

A16XJD said:

If anyones interested, this ultimately seemed to work as intended,

The vast majority of my pension contributions i did in just a small number of months (to eat into the amount paid at higher NI rates) & then i ensured i kept pension contributions to a minimum in the months i recieved bonuses (where i would inevitably go into the 2%NI range).

It's all showing up on the gov site as a 'full NI year' even though it's taken over £1k off my NI bill paid vs prior years.

If you were allowed to go under NMW on a temporary basis (allowing it to be assessed over the whole tax year) you'd be able to hit this one a lot harder though. Shame

You don't have to pay any NI to gain a qualifying year.  Earning £123/week throughout the year is sufficient.

Yep all makes sense.

Just thought it might have raised some questions given the amount of NI taken looks incredibly low vs the recorded taxable earnings.