alfista1

ok thanks - wish they would update the status in the app. How difficult can that be? We sit in the dark for months not knowing if a letter has been lost or sent to the wrong recipient.
My neighbour is away on holiday and I see an envelope sticking out of their letter box which doesn't look domestic - saw that this morning.
Ours is a semi and postmen always get us mixed up.
Any idea what colour/size the envelope was?

Should have put a UK address on it!

Thanks

LT1

Sorry, I don't know!

alfista1

ok no worries.
In your hmrc app under NI contributions and amounts to pay, has that been updated to reflect your class 2 lower rates by any chance?
Thanks

LT1

I didn't actually know there was an app! Just downloaded it, and very impressed!

I'm not sure exactly where you mean re showing lower class 2 rates? There is nothing obvious where I can see this.

I do note that my 2022-2023 now shows "Full Year" but the contributions breakdown still only shows "Paid Employment" and the figure is what I paid in UK NI on payslips before leaving the UK in Dec 2022. i.e. it does not show that I made a voluntary payment.

alfista1

I believe it shows the amount only if you have gaps or missed yrs as in my case.
From the home page click on National Insurance > Check National Insurance Contributions > View details (of one of the missed years) this opens up and shows the amount of voluntary contribution you should make.

Thought that amount may change

LT1

This is what I see:

alfista1

ah lucky no missed years. I have too many!! Hope they can change a few previous years to a lower rate once my class 2 goes through.

LT1

Ah I see, sorry, yes I'm lucky that all my years are full, albeit they've been very expensive!

stephend-

I heard nothing electronically - only a letter that came through the post to the US. I had selected Direct Debit on my original application form but as more than 6 months had passed since I dated the DD mandate, it could no longer be executed. The letter basically said don't bother with DD as they won't get it processed in time due to backlogs. So I paid my 13 years via bank transfer following these instructions: www.gov.uk/pay-class-2-national-insurance (Class 2 NICs).

Apparently it takes six weeks for the records to be updated after payment.

ckusa

Just FYI - when back-paying contributions my information was updated in the nominal 6 weeks - Mrs ckusa's seemed to get lost and was in limbo until we phoned them (which was surprisingly quick!) - current issue with hers is that her past contributions were totally messed up - they said may be mid-end 2024 to sort it out. Any post/mail from them seems to come via a bulk mailing system via Malta which takes about 3 months to the US - then they wonder why you don't reply in time.

tht

In my experience even with the details in the bank transfer a call is needed to “allocate” it to the record… but I always wait 3-4 months first to see if it posts on the website.

morpeth

[QUOTE=tht;13237091]In my experience even with the details in the bank transfer a call is needed to “allocate” it to the record… but I always wait 3-4 months first to see if it posts on the website.[/QUOTEl

My experience has been to call for allocating paymentsm or double-check the allocation, and within 2 to 4 weeks I would see reflected.

reltub

Can someone help me understand the NI contributions to pension calculation? I am showing as having made 30 years of full pension contributions, but the projected pension is less than 30/35 of the max of 203.55 Pounds. Do NICs count less in some way in the calculation? I am trying to work out how many extra years of contributions it will take to reach the maximum pension? Thanks

Glasgow Girl

If you ever contracted out of SERPs then your state pension will be reduced by an amount that is supposed to reflect the benefit of contracting out. You may have voluntarily contracted out by explicitly doing so, or you may have been a member of a company scheme that contracted out on your behalf and you may not be aware that you were contracted out. If I remember correctly if you contributed more than 30 years prior to 2016 then any additional years beyond 30 would not have counted into the 35 years that are currently needed for the full pension but all years post 2016 do count. It’s a complicated calculation if you had pre and post 2016 years, but in any case every year you now contribute for post 2016 years should buy you £5.82 a week additional state pension, so figure out what the shortfall is divide it by £5.82, round up the answer to the next whole number and that is how many additional years you need. I think your state pension forecast should identify that.

durham_lad

Sounds right. Recently I have been helping a friend understand what his projected OAP is, after his 60th birthday last year. I helped him create an HMRC gateway account and see his NI record. He has 34 qualifying years but because he opted out for a number of years, according to the website, he still has 4 years of contributions to make before he gets the full OAP. During his opted out years he has accumulated around £37k of contributions to 3 different SIPPs. He had no idea what OAP to expect so he was delighted to see how much he is due to get at full retirement age.