Im_and_Er

You can still retire in October but if you are not moving to France immediately the next day then don't apply for your S1 until you need to.

I know I said the clock starts ticking when you stop paying NI and it's correct but I made the point because I have heard stories of people who didn't appreciate that and thought that they were entitled to an 2 year S1 at any time so packed in work then took a year or sometimes more to make their move only to find that their entitlement was not what they had banked on, a potentially catastrophic error !

Short delays won't necessarily hurt and can be used to your advantage. In your case you can still retire in October 2014 just don't apply for your S1 until you actually need it, and certainly not before the end of the current S1 year in January 2015, that will then get you cover to January 2017.

tebo53

Thank, Food for thought! At least I've got all the information at hand now to make the correct decisions. It will be Spain, not France that is favourite.
Regards.

bigglesworth

Tebo I wis you the very best of British. I have just finished yet another phone call with Newcastle, this one denying the existence of a letter I had sent to them, the contents of which they had just quoted to me.
The information they had given to me as to termination of S1 or E106 was wrong. There is nothing they can do. My health cover will cease some three months earlier than HMRC had said. All I can do is appeal to the International Caseworkers Tribunal.
I would strongly urge you on every single conversation to insist on the correspondents full name AND Department. depending on the options you pick the telephone numbers can put you through to any one of up to 5 departments, and they will ALL deny any knowledge or responsibility for anything you have been told.
They are undoubtedly the most disfunctional set of jobsworths in the country

Im_and_Er

Sorry tebo, I was forgetting which forum I was in !

Bigglesworth, how long did you expect your E106/S1 to last for, as stated, and workers S1's excepted, they always expire in January.

Are they telling you something different and do you actually mean 'termination' or just expire, the two are not necessarily the same thing although I can't think of any circumstance in which an S1 would be 'terminated' before it's due date.

Also I have not heard of anybody actually being told by UK that their S1 was about to expire neither is it something I would expect them to be doing.

bigglesworth

im and Er

HMRC S1s (or E106) expire end Feb usually, but sometimes as late as end March as they are (so HMRC inform me) timed with the tax year.

DWP Nat Insurance S1s (or E106) are timed with the calendar year to coincide with the benefit year (I have no idea if that is true).

It is precisely their use of "termination" date that worries me - although they do say they expect to renew for that second calendar year. The use of calendar years means that the first year is normally less than a full year. Which makes even nonsense of the automatic entitlement.

They also say that they cannot "guarantee" that a second year will be granted as it depends on the contribution rates decided annually by HMG. Which they cannot assess in advance, and could (in theory) be abolished completely.

You are very plainly very clued up on this. I learnt today that there are two (or more) different Ehics. EHIC, EHIC A and EHIC E. Covering whether one is resident abroad (EU) working, resident in the UK working, or not working, and resident abroad (EU) not working.

Im_and_Er

AFAIK HMRC are only responsible for the issue of S1's to those still paying UK NI, the so called 'workers S1', and having been the recipient of one of those for several years I can say with some authority that they are issued at any time of the year on demand and based on the actual date you say you are leaving the UK and becoming non resident and expire on their anniversary one year later so they have no fixed relationship to the tax year.

I suppose it may be possible that if you quit work, and therefore NI contributions, during the course of the validity of a workers S1 HMRC might only grant a partial extension based on how much you NI you had actually paid in the part of the current tax year covered by it but in that situation when it expired naturally you would simply switch to DWP for your residual S1 anyway so any expiry or termination dates by HMRC would be meaningless.

The benefit year is the calendar year so the DWP S1 being in accordance with that is correct.

You still haven't said where, or in what context, the term 'termination' is being used. Unless they made a mistake when issuing it or the applicant gave false information in order to obtain it I cannot see how an S1 can be prematurely terminated as the document is itself evidence of entitlement to it !

I'd appreciate a link to that EHIC information if you have one please.

Domino

but if you are resident in Spain and contributing (presumably directly or indirectly to Spain's medical system) then you have to get a Spanish EHIC and return your UK card.
this will give you access to UK medical on your visits home, NHS facilities are not supposed to give you any medical assistance with the UK EHIC.

Im_and_Er

No that is not correct. It was in the past but new EU rules meant that it all changed in May 2010

http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/Healthc...gulations.aspx

megmet

Yes that is correct!

As pensioners here or as dependants, the EHIC card now has to be obtained from your country of birth, it is no longer issued here in Spain unless you are working here and paying into the system.

bigglesworth

Domino. I moved to France from Spain a couple of years back, at which time the rules were the same in both countries. If they have now changed in Spain, I have not heard, but they have not for France.
If you live in France, but do not work in Spain, and you return to the UK, work in the UK and pay NI and tax in UK, then the UK issues your S1 and your EHIC for use in the UK and other European countries. That is what i have been told many times by Newcastle.
The issue now is, having retired, is the card still issued by the UK EHIC team. A very definite lady insisted to me yesterday that it was and is so. (A month ago, the chap I spoke to at DWP said it had been cancelled, which was one of the reasons I have been writing and calling DWP and Overseas Health care. The other reason was the changed duration of the S1.)

bigglesworth

Sorry Im and Er just seen your post clarifying Domino's point.

Your S1 points.
I left the UK in May 2008, notified DWP, HMRC etc, eventually filed overseas tax returns etc. Immediately prior to departure I requested a workers E106 - now S1 which was refused. HMRC and DWP were aware that I would continue to return to the UK to work. There is nothing odd about my background (that I am aware of). I was born in England, as were family since time immemorial, and have paid NI for forty odd years.
After much argument, (including contacting the International Caseworkers) my S1 was eventually issued the following year - perhaps in February.
I re applied each year in December and my S1 was re-issued each year, starting 1st March.
As I posted earlier, approaching retirement, I discussed with Newcastle (and with yourself as I recall) the timing of the S1, and Newcastle assured me that, if I worked through to January, I would have paid sufficient Nat Insurance and Tax in 2012/13 to qualify for the second year. In December therefore I happily informed Newcastle that I would cease work end January 2013 (something you have to inform them of on the application form). HMRC are quite adamant that it is the amount of tax and Nat Insurance one pays in the ultimate year that determines your suitability for a second year's cover. They are also adamant that they operate on the tax year. N.B. That may not be the same as saying that that is when they start S1 entitlement - I have no idea. Until receipt of the latest bombshell in January it seemed to make no difference.

I too as you can tell have been issued with "workers" S1s for a number of years (five - in two jurisdictions!) The disturbing part is that it seems that one is swapped from HMRC "rules" to DWP "rules" when one retires, NOT when one takes the State Pension.
"Termination" is the term they used on the phone to describe the annual expiry of the S1. They used it several times. Perhaps because when one retires, one switches from one access route to another? The S1 after all only has a validity of one year, after which you have to re-apply - their words. Switching as you suggest to a DWP entitlement is not helpful, as logically surely, being based on a calendar year, they will always have a shorter validity.

EHICs - as I said I rang the EHIC helpline to determine if what DWP had said in Jan/Feb was correct, namely that my EHIC had been cancelled. (Which I assumed must be part of the transfer process onto a DWP S 1). The lady I spoke to said she would check whether I had the "correct" EHIC - an EHIC E, and not an EHIC or an EHIC A. She said the EHIC E is for those with a workers S1. There is no obvious indication on the card but it seems the numbering system is different. I do, but she was unable to tell me if, having now been transferred from HMRC to DWP entitlement, that would remain the case. Now whether, when I receive my State Pension in several years, it would still be the same one.


The real difficulty as I see it is that when one rings the EHIC helpline, or HMRC, or Overseas Assets etc, or Nat Health overseas or DWP etc in Newcastle, they all have a series of menus. Each menu choice can take you to a different part of any one of those departments. If you make the wrong menu choice - which is easily done, as you have to pick the closest one to your situation- you may believe you are talking to DWP, or HMRC, but you are actually talking to the National Health team, or somebody else.

I have now written to the International Caseworkers and will post how I get on. For those who have read Kafka, wish me luck!

Domino

I am not so sure I am wrong in that the reference you posted reads
What I have said (the "close brackets" is in the wrong place and should have been after the word indirectly) is highlighted. I still believe this to be correct.
the same website says
so......
someone who is not receiving pension or incapacity benefit, but working in another country should be obtaining their EHIC from that country.

Or is there a problem with my reading glasses.

tebo53

You have thrown my ideas into some disarray. There seems to be a conflict of information now about when the S1 starts. Is it January or March? Does it last one year (or up to) two? I'm referring to the S1 for early retirement healthcare coverage.

bigglesworth

Me too Tebo!

I am waiting for Im and Er's advice to fuel my next conversation with Newcastle. But it is like herding cats.

Im_and_Er

Domino you are correct that for those not in receipt of a UK state pension or a qualifying state benefit their EHIC should be obtained from the health authorities in their country of residence. If for whatever reason they are not affiliated to that system then unfortunately they are out on their own with private cover their only option.

My comments here are offered in the context of those entitled to an S1, by whatever route - not those who are not - and since the two situations are clearly very different, and for the sake of the topic staying on track, I would suggest that we limit ourselves to that.

Can we get a couple of things out of the way also, tax in UK is nothing to do with entitlement to an S1, it is determined solely by your NI contribution record. You might well ask in that case what business it is of HMRC’s and why all S1’s are not dealt with by DWP but I'm afraid I can offer no logical answer to that. Also referring to voluntarily giving up paid employment work as retiring can tend to further muddy the waters so best to reserve that term for it's true meaning which is reaching state retirement age, let’s call it early retirement instead.

To be honest with you Bigglesworth I'm struggling to get my head around your experiences with HMRC and what they are telling you as it seems so much at odds to my own dealings with them in what, on the surface at least, appear to be quite similar circumstances. It seems to me that there must be some influencing factor or factors which you have not yet mentioned, perhaps because you may not realise their significance.

Was your work in the UK was as a PAYE employee or self employed, the two are not treated in the same way.

Were you paid a monthly salary or only paid when you were actually there working ?

That you say you have to inform HMRC of the date you intend to stop work when applying for your E106 is slightly puzzling too. There is no such question on the form unless you are referring to Q25: How long do you expect your current employment. I’d always put indefinitely there as I was a permanent PAYE employee and had no fixed idea of when I was going to actually quit so were you perhaps under a fixed term contract and were therefore able to put an actual date against that ?

Timing wise what I can state quite unequivocally is that my workers E106's ran from when I first and applied for it then for successive periods of 12 months. In my particular case that was October to October so they were not tied to the tax year in any way, or at least in no way which was either apparent or had any effect on their duration or validity. I never ever mentioned to HMRC when I was going stop working nor did I even tell them when I actually did !

When that time came I simply applied to DWP for a residual S1 and was duly issued with one which covered the balance of that particular calendar year plus a full calendar year on top, exactly as anticipated. I am currently still under that and it's expiry date takes me well past my OH's state retirement age at which time she will receive an S1 which will then take over for both of us.

Tebo you mustn't automatically assume that Bigglesworths rather perplexing tale has anything to do with your situation. As previously pointed out the normal DWP S1 that you are concerned with is issued at any time on demand and runs to the January of the second full calendar year after.

When Bigglesworth says he was applying in December for a March renewal that would almost certainly have been because of HMRC inefficiency as it takes them 3 months (or more) to issue renewals and in fact it’s largely futile applying that far in advance as they require your payslip from the month immediately prior to the renewal date before they will issue it anyway !

To touch on the EHIC situation, the EHIC's we had when we left UK both expired about 2 years later and we simply applied for new ones which we got without question.

By sheer coincidence in yesterdays post I received a letter from DWP confirming that they had now received from France a registered copy of my DWP S1 (I lodged it many months ago) and that I (we) should now apply for new EHICs enclosing a form for that purpose. This is standard procedure.

Interestingly, although the application form asks about any existing EHIC's, it does not say that they are now invalid or that I should return them so whether they will be allowed to run their course, which is roughly another year, or be replaced now with new 5 year ones I don't know.