Giantaxe

I guess the other not-so-pleasant possibility is that voluntary contributions will be scrapped come next April.

Pulaski

You may be right, but that seems unlikely when the push for many years has been to encourage people to save more for retirement and closing off one way to increase your retirement income would send an odd message. That's not to say that governments don't sometimes send odd messages.

durham_lad

I agree. It is only recently that they increased the length of time for a full pension from 30 to 35 years so to then cut off a way to make up some missing years contributions would be politically very bad.

morpeth

I would guess if a change is made, those who currently can make voluntary contributions could continue for past years, or perhaps simply the rate of voluntary contributions might be increased.

Steve_

I don't think there's any chance of voluntary NI contributions being done away with, in the past they have talked about limiting it to 5 years though, so only people temporarily abroad can do it.

I suspect it will be Class 3 instead.

morpeth

Looking at the return on investment for catch-up contributions, I actually would have expected that they might keep voluntary contributions but perhaps increase the amount to pay the older one gets. I am contributing for some years missed, and works out to a great return on investment due to my age.

wisygreen

I have just received my letter for voluntary class 2 contributions denied as I was not employed or ordinarily working prior to leaving UK. I was looking after the kids and working very spasmodically. Is there anything I can do. I have 22 years of credits.

mrken30

I heard on the news today, NI class 2 is not going until maybe 2019. They released the news yesterday. Not sure what that means for expats.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/ne...yed-until-2019

OldJuddian

How long did it take them to reply. I'm anxiously waiting on some reply to my application which was sent on 21st Sep.

durham_lad

Exactly the same with my wife recently, but amazingly she has been given the option to pay 11 years of prior class 3 contributions to bring her total to 31 years. We paid the money a couple of weeks ago.

It took well over 3 months to get a reply plus a couple of phone calls asking for progress. In fact she first applied in February and the whole process of getting the rejection letter and then calling and asking to instead pay class 3 took over 7 months.

drhewitt

That's great news! One more year of Class 2 NICs.

OldJuddian

I have just received a letter confirming a Direct Debit has been setup, but no mention of paying for previous years. Does that come separately?
It looks like I am now paying Class 2 half-yearly.

durham_lad

Yes they are 2 separate issues. With both my wife recently and myself some years ago it was 2 separate applications, with the past years being paid by direct bank transfer in our case. We could have chosen to have paid the back years in more than one payment but decided to get it all done in a single effort.

For the back years you should get a letter showing the annual amount year by year as they are different amounts for each year. With my wife earlier this year the letter detailed the amounts but did not indicate how to pay so she called HMRC and after telling the person how much she wanted to pay he gave her a long reference number to put on the details of the bank payment to be sure it was credited to her account. Even after paying it took about 6 weeks to show up on her record. (I would log on each week to check her record).

morpeth

I had somewhat similar experience, being given the long reference number I instructed my bank to make weekly payments for my current and past due NI contributions, and found that it took several weeks to be credited- but then found out unless the amount matches a full year, I had to call to ask the amounts to be credited.

I will say all payments were eventually credited, and at least it was fairly easy to reach them by phone. The reference number is interesting because it can change if one asks for a new reference number, so it is a bit curious the process.

FatFrank

Completed and mailed our NI38_CF83s back in September, still haven't heard anything back from HMRC. Anyone have an idea how long it should take before you hear back with approval/denial to pay Class 2 from HMRC?