Married Womens 1/2 Stamp

Redfox510

My wife was advised to pay into this scheme and as a result, has now got a reduced pension of around £90 per week apparently some of her National Insurance contributions were retrospectively taken away from her because of the reduced contributions, has anyone managed to get those contributions reinstated 

Dazed_and_C0nfused

Who provided her with this advice?

molerat

Redfox510 said:

My wife was advised to pay into this scheme and as a result, has now got a reduced pension of around £90 per week apparently some of her National Insurance contributions were retrospectively taken away from her because of the reduced contributions, has anyone managed to get those contributions reinstated 

No they were not retrospectively removed.  Whilst paying the small stamp she was not being credited with NI towards her state pension.  There is nothing to reinstate as nothing was removed.  Many women elected to pay the small stamp as it meant more money in their pocket.

Redfox510

After waiting   1 1/2 hours on the phone the Advisor at  National Insurance Contributions told me that was the case, I am no expert however I believe what she told me. and some 15 years of deductions were it says "not paid in full" on the HMRC app for the years before she started paying

Silvertabby

Bad advice, too late to do anything now.  Not affected personally, but I know people who were - and paying the married woman's stamp certainly wasn't official government advice. Merely an option.

When a work friend got married in the early 1970s she was strongly 'advised' by a couple of other married colleagues and a union rep 'to get herself to the admin office and claim her stamp back - less money to the government and more spends for her'.  Fortunately, my friend took the advice of her mother, who told her to carry on paying full NI in order to accrue her own State pension.

My aunt always regretted opting to pay the married woman's stamp, but not paying full NI was the difference between being able to afford their mortgage or not, so the reduction must have been considerable.  She had to sign an application, which included a declaration stating that she understood that her reduced NI payments wouldn't count towards her own State pension.