rich251076

I am presently age 41.

I made about six years of contributions to my UK social security through regular employment before leaving and becoming a US citizen where I have paid contributions for the last 15 years.

I now plan to return to the UK and am trying to figure out how to obtain the best possible pension situation for myself when I reach retirement age. I understand I can make up, up to six years, of my UK pension via class II payements?

I would no longer be paying US SS payments if I returned to the UK as my UK earnings would be substantially less.

Could anyone offer some advice on the best thing to do in this situation?

holly_1948

The two systems are almost 100% separate with minimal interaction.
So you need to work out what is best in each system without regard to the other system.
Almost certainly it will be best to pay the maximum number of UK years of arrears that you are allowed to. There is no great hurry, the deadline to pay arrears without "losing" a year of entitlement is the UK tax year (5April each year).

Pulaski

In addition to six years of employment in the UK you may have some "deemed years" while you were at school and/or university. Go ahead and contact the DWP and make the catch-up contributions - six years plus current year will cost you just about £1,000, then you will have another 25-26 years in the UK before you reach retirement.

So in total you should have 6 years pre-US paid employment, 2+ deemed years 7 years catch-up, 25 years post-US paid employment, which is at least 40 years, so comfortably more than the 35 you need for a "full pension", at least under the current rules.

You can't do much about your US social security, but you can claim when you reach retirement. You will be subject to the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) on your US SS, at least under current rules.

Jensmate

I'm wondering if it would be worth making catch up contributions to the UK pension scheme? I had 4.5 years paid into NI before I left for the U.S. aged 21.
I will be returning aged 62 but not working...I have other income including US pensions. What am I likely to receive at age 66 if a pay in another 4 years?

Pulaski

Nothing. You have to have ten years of actual or deemed contributions to get anything. But if you can contribute through payment of arrears, or work after you return, enough to get to ten years then the return on the money you pay in is incredibly good, so we'll worth doing.

Jensmate

Perth

If you set up an account here

https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/check-your-state-pension

you can get more than a simple pension forecast. They will detail what years you contributed and what years you may make up and how much that will cost you.

durham_lad

Unless they have changed things you may need a UK mobile number to set up and authorize the account. Before I had a UK mobile they would let me enter my US number +1 xxxxxxxxxxxxx but I never received any text authorization code. As soon as we got back last May, 2016 and got a UK number the site worked great. It was quite new a year or 2 ago and they might have improved it since.

Perth

Oops yes, you are right. They do send a text authorization code, not just for set up but for every time you log in. You would need to have someone with a UK phone number who could receive the code for you.