MrCheeky

My wife and I will be retiring and moving to the UK from Canada. I have a question (and likely some follow-ups) regarding National Insurance as I have been doing some online tax calculations and there is a significant amount devoted to NI when I use the online calculators.

1. As we will eventually be collecting CPP and OAS, are we mandated to contribute to NI via our income taxes? (We will be in our early-mid 50s when we move)

We will not likely be working and our income will be predominately from pensions and investments.

durham_lad

Mandatory NI payments are only paid out of earned income. So if you only have pensions and other non-earned income then you don’t have to pay any NI contributions.

Twitcher1958

In our experience, you’re not mandated to do so, but depending on your age and your work history, it could be worth your while to do so. We didn’t have full years of contributions to get a full pension but found we can make up the shortfall fairly cheaply to get full entitlement. Worth speaking to them after you do your pension forecast on line - we found them extremely helpful in detailing what payments were worthwhile.

MrCheeky

Thank you for the quick and informative responses. Contributing to NI is not a priority as we will have significant CPP and OAS from Canada having lived and worked here for so long. We won't rule out any part time work in the UK though as it may assist in establishing new friends, hobbies etc. Having said that, we have both worked hard for our money and wish to make the most of it through travel and other interests.