Should our accountant have advised me to pay NI?

MagaineMerlin

Hi, when my husband and I started up our new hospitality business (a partnership- so we are self employed) we didn't pay ourselves for the first 5 years. We lived onsite, ate the food there and our cars and phones were paid for by the business. We had a bookkeeper and we took on an accountancy firm to do our end of year accounts/tax returns)

After 5 years we started paying ourselves, but I have only just realised when looking into topping up my NI from years before, that we didn't pay any NI in these 5 years. I know it sounds silly, but we were so busy with the business we just relied on our accountant to tell us what to pay.

My question is, have our accountants been negligent by not advising us to pay this?  

p00hsticks

I personally don't think so. I assume yo uare asking becasue of al lthe recent publicity about filling in gap years to boost your state pension ? Your accountant wouldn't know your personal NI history and whether there would be any  any benefit to paying it.

Have you and your husband got State Pension forecasts that indicate you will need those gaps filled to get the full amount ?

P.S> This should be in another part of the forum really to attract more answers, but I'm not sure where - I'll ask for it to be moved to somewhere more appropriate. 

MagaineMerlin

Thank you. And yes I have eight years to fill for my state pension. And yes I have been listening to the recent publicity from Martin Lewis.

As we are a partnership it is our personal tax returns that the accountants do, alongside the business ones.