JJF

Hi,

I am receiving US SS benefits, and I am about to approach them with info on my UK pension. I have been told that they need to know how many qualifying years were from NIC's from work and how many were from voluntary NIC's. (Took a while to get this from the Pension Service.) Is this correct?

is there any other information SSA will need to evaluate how much they will reduce my SS benefits?

Many thanks.

lansbury

If you have paid 30 years of contributions into SS your benefit will not be reduced, if less than 30 years it will. When taking your UK pension into account the amount you receive as a result of the voluntary contributions will not be used to calculate the deduction in your SS. SSA will need to know the amount of your UK pension and how it was calculated.

JJF

Thanks for the response, lansbury.

Over the phone, I was told by HMRC that all I needed was a schedule of my contributions. They sent me one, but it does not record the first nine years of my working contributions and was missing the last one. I called again and they sent another. This contains the last missing year, but still does not show the first nine.

The accompanying letter does state that I have 30 qualifying years, and the schedule does show 19 years of voluntary contributions. Does that meet the SSA's need to see how the pension was calculated or should I go back to HMRC for more info.

While waiting for these schedules I have a four pension payments, so presumably I will be repaying some of my SS benefits?

lansbury

Contact SS you need the total amount of UK pension. That 19/30ths of that amount are from voluntary contributions and therefore that sum is not used in calculating the Windfall Elimination Provision. They will have to decide if what your have from HMRC is sufficient for their needs.

JJF

Thanks.

scrubbedexpat099

What if you are piggybacking on Spouse?

durham_lad

If you mean that you are getting spousal SS then WEP does not apply to you, it only applies to the person who earned the SS. So a person claiming SS based on their spouse's SS does not have those payments reduced by WEP based on any other pensions they are collecting.

lansbury

Whatever floats your boat.