Pension: Years Earned and TopUP

JayZS

Pension being a benefit and not an entitlement, there are various rumours circulating, that State Pension could become a means tested benefit.  Many people have topped up their contribution years by extra payments in order to get a full or increased pension. ( I think current prices are about £850 per extra year)  My wife has paid for an extra ten years shortly before her retirement.  I paid for extra years shortly after leaving university.  How might these payments be treated if pension becomes means tested?  It would surely create great difficulty.  In the case of my own payments, made over 55 years ago, would the pensions department even still have records?

flaneurs_lobster

JayZS said:

Pension being a benefit and not an entitlement, there are various rumours circulating, that State Pension could become a means tested benefit. 

There are various rumours circulating that King Charles III could be a lizard alien from the planet Tharg.

I'll give these rumours credence when there's some evidence that they might be true.

kempiejon

Thargians have been visiting since the 1920s and I'm pretty sure Tharg and humans hybridise. I'd heard that King C is actually half Tharg and half human lizard. His mother having been experimented on by Tharg scientists.

Surely the easy answer to how extra payment would be treated for means tested benefits is they'd be irrelvant, it's means that are tested not extra payments.

Marcon

JayZS said:

Pension being a benefit and not an entitlement, there are various rumours circulating, that State Pension could become a means tested benefit.  Many people have topped up their contribution years by extra payments in order to get a full or increased pension. ( I think current prices are about £850 per extra year)  My wife has paid for an extra ten years shortly before her retirement.  I paid for extra years shortly after leaving university.  How might these payments be treated if pension becomes means tested?  It would surely create great difficulty.  In the case of my own payments, made over 55 years ago, would the pensions department even still have records?

If you made voluntary payments over 55 years ago, then you are already well and truly old enough to be in receipt of your state pension - probably well into your 70s - so even if the rumours ever came to fruition, it isn't likely to impact on you or your wife if she's of a similar sort of age.

QrizB

JayZS said:

How might these payments be treated if pension becomes means tested?

In the unlikely event that the state pension is means tested, the Chancellor will quietly thank you for your generous voluntary tax contributions.