If you are planning on claiming a UK state pension at some point in the future, please check your National Insurance (NI) record before the end of the current financial year on 5 April 2023.
At the moment, there is a reprieve from HMRC in respect of, if there are gaps in your NI record (which may be due to periods of not working, gap years after university, child care etc). These gaps can be made up with voluntary NI contributions to HMRC.
The reason why it is so important to ensure that you have a NI record with no gaps is that you will then be entitled to ‘the new state pension’ which will be received by those retiring on or after 6 April 2016 and, in order to be entitled to this, you must have 35 qualifying years of NI contributions.
For part-payment of ‘the new state pension’ a person must have made contributions for at least 10 years.
In order to protect one’s entitlement to the state pension and other benefits, such as receipt of universal credit or child benefit, it may be advisable to top-up your NI record.
There is currently an extension in place and individuals can fill gaps in their NI history from 6 April 2006 to the present date by making voluntary contributions, however, from 6 April 2023 the timeframe will revert back to the normal 6 years. This means that with effect from 6 April 2023 it will only be possible to make contributions going back to the 2017/2018 tax year.
You should check your NI record to identify any shortfalls in your NI history and you should also check that your contributions made through PAYE (if you are salaried) or through self-assessment (if you are self-employed) and NI credits earned. You should contact HMRC to have any errors corrected.
One of the first things to do when checking your pension record is that you must have a note of your NI number and, once you have identified this, you can check your NI record via the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/check-national-insurance-record
If you need any help in connection with this, please do get in touch and even if you don’t know your NI number to start the checking process, you can obtain this from HMRC.
Should you wish to discuss any matters relating to this article, please contact us on 0345 646 0406 or fill in our online enquiry form and a member of our Team will be in touch.