Originally Posted by nun (Post 9701323)

Your husband should inform HMRC that he is no longer resident in the UK and apply to pay Class II voluntary contributions from the time that he became non resident. He can pay these retroactively for up to 6 years. The point is that the 2009-2010 NIC bill may well be charging your husband for the wrong class of NI payments...Class II are only 2.40 pound a week.

I've been paying Class II NI for 25 years and as I got 3 years of free contributions in my teenage years I have 28 years of NIC which have only cost me 5k pounds in total.

Originally Posted by nun (Post 9701301)

Your husband will need 10 years of FICA payments to qualify for SS. Once he qualifies and takes SS his previous years of NI contributions along with any Royal Mail pension will be used to calculate an reduction to his SS amount called the Windfall Elimination Provision. The amount of the reduction is capped at a maximum amount and you can estimate how much that is using a calculator on the SSA website, just google "WEP calculator". Right now he will get 22/30 of his UK pension when he becomes eligible.

When I looked into this I decided to pay voluntary Class II NI contributions because they are so inexpensive and the UK state pension was far more than the amount I'd be WEPed. You should make you apply to pay Class II NI if your husband is working for a US employer in the US as they are only about 120 pounds a year.

Originally Posted by penguinbar (Post 9701512)

HMRC knows that he is a non resident already since he had to do UK tax returns for 2 years because he is a non resident landlord. Should we inform them again?