Before I paid 7xVC's 2016/thru23, I had 36 full yrs. 2011/thru2016 are still gaps. Why can't I fill?

1957DfurdPensionist

My nSP at current rates has been quoted to me as £216.62pw, so I am now around £4.50 short of maximum nSP.

I do not understand why I have multiple times without explanation been told by DWP that I cannot improve further by paying for example just one more year.

Can anyone decipher for me, given the data in the title, why this is likely to be?  It feels like I am being punished for not jumping through the right invisible hoops in the dim distant past!

Surely the deadline extension for VC's was intended amongst other situations, to allow people like me with a solid early to mid career UK NI contribution history albeit including a lot of contracting out like most of us my age who have worked for larger organisations most of our lives, then not contributing for a few years prior to pension reforms, (having gone abroad in my case) to retrospectively top up completely?

What did I do wrong?

QrizB

Depending on exactly how your pension is calculated, you can benefit from at least 30 and a maximum of 35 pre-2016 years.

If you already have 36, adding more pre-2016 years won't improve your pension.

1957DfurdPensionist

QrizB said:

Depending on exactly how your pension is calculated, you can benefit from at least 30 and a maximum of 35 pre-2016 years.

If you already have 36, adding more pre-2016 years won't improve your pension.

Thanks for that, but why?  I appreciate that I am being treated under some kind of transitional jiggery pokery, but yes I already had 30 pre-2016 years (36 pre- 2011 in fact) before I paid for 7 more - so far still no logic is emerging ... irrespective of my age not being 7 years younger, did I perhaps start my NI paying career 6 or 7 years too early?

In fact, had I been just 6 or 7 months younger I feel sure I could have purchased a VC for 2023/24!  Someone messed up with sloppy design of the transition, didn't they?

Sarahspangles

1957DfurdPensionist said:

QrizB said:

Depending on exactly how your pension is calculated, you can benefit from at least 30 and a maximum of 35 pre-2016 years.

If you already have 36, adding more pre-2016 years won't improve your pension.

Thanks for that, but why?  I appreciate that I am being treated under some kind of transitional jiggery pokery, but yes I already had 30 pre-2016 years (36 pre- 2011 in fact) before I paid for 7 more - so far still no logic is emerging ... irrespective of my age not being 7 years younger, did I perhaps start my NI paying career 6 or 7 years too early?

Are you questioning the policy, or do you think the calculation is incorrect?

molerat

At April 2016 you were given the higher of

Old X(max 30) x £119.30/30 + S2P - exactly the same if you retired pre 2016

or

New X(max 35) x 155.65/35 - COPE

As you can see you are limited to the maximum number of payable years under each scheme so adding any more cannot improve the 2016 pension amount.

Why ? coz that's the rules laid down in statute law.

In fact, had I been just 6 or 7 months younger I feel sure I could have purchased a VC for 2023/24!  Someone messed up with sloppy design of the transition, didn't they?

You have never been able to use the year in which you reach retirement so nothing changed in the transitional rules over that.

Dazed_and_C0nfused

1957DfurdPensionist said:

QrizB said:

Depending on exactly how your pension is calculated, you can benefit from at least 30 and a maximum of 35 pre-2016 years.

If you already have 36, adding more pre-2016 years won't improve your pension.

Thanks for that, but why?  I appreciate that I am being treated under some kind of transitional jiggery pokery, but yes I already had 30 pre-2016 years (36 pre- 2011 in fact) before I paid for 7 more - so far still no logic is emerging ... irrespective of my age not being 7 years younger, did I perhaps start my NI paying career 6 or 7 years too early?

In fact, had I been just 6 or 7 months younger I feel sure I could have purchased a VC for 2023/24!  Someone messed up with sloppy design of the transition, didn't they?

You don't mean you paid for 7 more pre 2016 years do you 😳

Sarahspangles

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

1957DfurdPensionist said:

QrizB said:

Depending on exactly how your pension is calculated, you can benefit from at least 30 and a maximum of 35 pre-2016 years.

If you already have 36, adding more pre-2016 years won't improve your pension.

Thanks for that, but why?  I appreciate that I am being treated under some kind of transitional jiggery pokery, but yes I already had 30 pre-2016 years (36 pre- 2011 in fact) before I paid for 7 more - so far still no logic is emerging ... irrespective of my age not being 7 years younger, did I perhaps start my NI paying career 6 or 7 years too early?

In fact, had I been just 6 or 7 months younger I feel sure I could have purchased a VC for 2023/24!  Someone messed up with sloppy design of the transition, didn't they?

You don't mean you paid for 7 more pre 2016 years do you 😳

Much, much more detail in the other post the OP started.

QrizB

1957DfurdPensionist said:

Thanks for that, but why?

You were either low-paid or contracted-out for part of your career, and didn't build up enough SERPS/S2P while that was still an option.

1957DfurdPensionist said:

In fact, had I been just 6 or 7 months younger I feel sure I could have purchased a VC for 2023/24!

Yes, being born later would also have helped you.

1957DfurdPensionist said:

Someone messed up with sloppy design of the transition, didn't they?

No.

In fact you're receiving more state pension than you would have done under the old scheme, plus you paid less NI than if you'd been contracted-in and still get to benefit from the GMP that your contracted-out scheme will pay you.

You're one of the winners under the new scheme, not one of the losers.

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

You don't mean you paid for 7 more pre 2016 years do you 😳

According to the thread title, he paid for 2016/17 to 2022/23.

Dazed_and_C0nfused

QrizB said:

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

1957DfurdPensionist said:

QrizB said:

Depending on exactly how your pension is calculated, you can benefit from at least 30 and a maximum of 35 pre-2016 years.

If you already have 36, adding more pre-2016 years won't improve your pension.

Thanks for that, but why?  I appreciate that I am being treated under some kind of transitional jiggery pokery, but yes I already had 30 pre-2016 years (36 pre- 2011 in fact) before I paid for 7 more - so far still no logic is emerging ... irrespective of my age not being 7 years younger, did I perhaps start my NI paying career 6 or 7 years too early?

In fact, had I been just 6 or 7 months younger I feel sure I could have purchased a VC for 2023/24!  Someone messed up with sloppy design of the transition, didn't they?

You don't mean you paid for 7 more pre 2016 years do you 😳

According to the thread title, he paid for 2016/17 to 2022/23.

Good point 😜 

1957DfurdPensionist

I acknowledge what you say of the 2016 calculation, as far as it goes without dissecting the dubious COPE calculations, but it turns out the rules were sloppily designed bearing in mind the current "top up with VC's" climate, were they not?

My latest observation surely demonstrates the fact.  If I was just 6 or 7 months younger, my SPa would have dropped into one more tax year - unless I am sorely mistaken, that would have allowed me to buy a VC for 2023/24 which would have taken me to max. current nSP.  It is not a question of me falling foul of where an arbitrary dob line fell in the statute, now is it?  I am now describing an unintended effect no-one has noticed properly before, am I not?  A case of the law being an a$$ if it is not corrected?

1957DfurdPensionist

QrizB said:

1957DfurdPensionist said:

Thanks for that, but why?

You were either low-paid or contracted-out for part of your career, and didn't build up enough SERPS/S2P while that was still an option.

Oh right, so a low paid career discriminates against receiving a maximum new State Pension???  Although I didn't qualify for the former and I do have a SERPs replacement policy that'll soon be worth £100,000, I sincerely hope you are wrong for the sakes of those less fortunate in their career-long earning capacities...