National Insurance Contributions for Parents

ItIsMichael

Hi, 

I'm hoping someone can help. 

My partner gave us work 14 years ago to look after our child. Soon, that child was joined by twins and plans to return to work were curtailed by the sheer scale of the childcare costs!

We've been been looking at her NI contributions, expecting the worse but the government website shows this;



Every year since she gave up work, they have been issuing NI credits it seems. 

This doesn't make sense as we don't claim child benefit, or haven't for many years, we were one of the ones stung by the High Income Child Benefit Charge. 

What is the best way of checking this is accurate? She's still 20 years from retirement, but Martin Lewis has me obsessed!  

Thanks for taking the time to even read this, even more gratitude if you can share a view. 

Cheers,

Michael.

Brie

Is this from a pension forecast from gov.uk?

JGB1955

You can get the credits without actually receiving CB.

Dazed_and_C0nfused

This doesn't make sense as we don't claim child benefit, or haven't for many years, we were one of the ones stung by the High Income Child Benefit Charge. 

What you've said doesn't make sense to me, why wouldn't you simply stop payment of the Child Benefit?

Stopping the claim then looking at potential issues with lack of NI credits seems counter intuitive.

p00hsticks

ItIsMichael said:

Hi, 

I'm hoping someone can help. 

My partner gave us work 14 years ago to look after our child. Soon, that child was joined by twins and plans to return to work were curtailed by the sheer scale of the childcare costs!

How soon was 'soon' ?
The reason I ask is that, as others have said,  it's perfectly possible to opt out of receiving Child Benefit payments but continue to get the NI credits. This would have been the sensible thing to do in your circumstances, but you'd need to think back to exactly how you 'stopped' claiming Child benefit to see if this is what happened. However, Child Benefit only comes with NI credits until the youngest child turns twelve, so if this is the reason for previous years credits.then it's likely they will stop soon going forward. 

Flugelhorn

I suspect you opted out of receiving child benefit but having had it in the past the NI credits still continued.

DH actually claimed it anyway and we stuck the money in an offset mortgage account and then gave it back to taxman a year or so later - at least we could be sure of the NI credits

Dazed_and_C0nfused

Flugelhorn said:

I suspect you opted out of receiving child benefit but having had it in the past the NI credits still continued.

DH actually claimed it anyway and we stuck the money in an offset mortgage account and then gave it back to taxman a year or so later - at least we could be sure of the NI credits

True MSE behaviour 😉

ItIsMichael

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

This doesn't make sense as we don't claim child benefit, or haven't for many years, we were one of the ones stung by the High Income Child Benefit Charge. 

What you've said doesn't make sense to me, why wouldn't you simply stop payment of the Child Benefit?

Stopping the claim then looking at potential issues with lack of NI credits seems counter intuitive.

Hey, so basically we got child benefit as standard when our son was born (2009) and then when our twins were born (2013). Around 2013 my salary went above the limit to receive child benefit. Blissfully unaware, we continued to recieve the benefit but once I found out about the limit, I stopped the benefit and contacted HMRC who hit me with a near 8k bill. 

Your second line I don't get, apologies. But in response, we claimed until 2018, so assuming those credits would be valid until then, even if I paid it back? As you'll probably gather... I'm clueless on this type of thing, but appreciate your response. 

ItIsMichael

So basically we stopped in 2018 when I contacted HMRC saying I was above the threshold to receive CB. 

Our twins are 10, my boy almost 14.

p00hsticks said:

ItIsMichael said:

Hi, 

I'm hoping someone can help. 

My partner gave us work 14 years ago to look after our child. Soon, that child was joined by twins and plans to return to work were curtailed by the sheer scale of the childcare costs!

How soon was 'soon' ?
The reason I ask is that, as others have said,  it's perfectly possible to opt out of receiving Child Benefit payments but continue to get the NI credits. This would have been the sensible thing to do in your circumstances, but you'd need to think back to exactly how you 'stopped' claiming Child benefit to see if this is what happened. However, Child Benefit only comes with NI credits until the youngest child turns twelve, so if this is the reason for previous years credits.then it's likely they will stop soon going forward. 

ItIsMichael

I did not know that. My partner and I don't remember doing anything for it. I actually only checked my partner's state pension to see how many years she had, fully expecting to see nothing for the last 13/14 whilst she's been raising the kids, so it was a big surprise. 

JGB1955 said:

You can get the credits without actually receiving CB.

Dazed_and_C0nfused

So basically we stopped in 2018 when I contacted HMRC saying I was above the threshold to receive CB. 

There is no threshold where CB stops.  

Really though I think you need to establish what actually happened in 2018.

Did you really stop claiming CB or did you continue claiming but asked for the payments to stop?  From what you've posted so far the latter seems the most likely.