State benefit payment at 65

Just to clarify it's the calendar year of your 61st birthday. At age 60 you enter your 61st year, this year doesn't count.

So providing you have 13 paid class A in the calendar year in which your 61st birthday falls and you have at least 39 credits in the calendar year in which your 63rd birthday falls you will qualify.

Operational Guidelines: Benefit Payment for 65 Year Olds

www.gov.ie

The relevant tax year is the same as the governing year. This is the calender year in which your 63rd birthday falls. So the two years before this are the calender years in which your 61st and 62nd birthdays fall



"If a person does not have 13 paid contributions in the Governing Contribution Year (GCY) they must have the 13 contributions paid in any one of the following years

The two tax years before the relevant tax year

The last complete tax year

Or

The current tax year"


I don't know if you would be allowed to split rental income that way.
If your wife is joint owner the rent might have to split 50 / 50.
 
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Thanks again for your prompt response.

The reason I'm still considering this is your previous post which suggested that I could disqualify myself from being eligible if I have rental income in excess of €7500.

Perhaps I should have been clearer on the question that prompted that reply.

In the tax year that I become 61, I plan to have 13 paid class A stamps. I also expect to have the 39 credits in the tax year when I hit 63. I will be signing on annually at that stage for credits (I hope).

In the tax year that I become age 62, I expect to have rental income. The amount is to be established (noting your point about the ratio).

So my (rephrased) question is, given the circumstances above, will earning rental income of any amount in the tax year that I become age 62, undo the (part) eligibility built up in the previous tax year?
 
The rental income will only be a problem in the year of your 65th and 66th birthdays.
It won't matter how much rental income you might have in previous years.

If you have less than 7500 in both of these years you should be okay to qualify.

I am only guessing about how the rental income could be divided.
Maybe ask a separate question about this to see if any tax experts reply.
 
Kev1964 said:
The reason I'm still considering this is your previous post which suggested that I could disqualify myself from being eligible if I have rental income in excess of €7500.
Click to expand...
I might have confused you with my previous answer. Having any amount of rental income in years before your 65th birthday will not disqualify you.

The rental income is considered as employment. It's only in the years that you would actually be claiming BP65 that you need to have ceased any employment over 7500 euro i.e. rental over 7500 euro.
 
Does this also appy to ARF income ? Is that also considered as employment income for the 7500 euro limit ?
 
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ARF income is not considered as employment for qualification for BP65

Benefit Payment at 65

Up to recently, there was an anomaly concerning the payment of the Benefit Payment at 65, a payment for 65 year olds who have retired, prior to applying for their State Contributory Pension at 66. The anomaly was this -...
ferga.com
 
Thank you very much for the info
 
Sorry to hijack...but think it's better than start a new thread

I am asking for a friend who may qualify for over 65 payment and is just not good with this sort of thing. It's confusing on what is the qualifying year. (2022 or 2023) ?

They were 65 in October last year.and have not worked since end of Sept 23. They have 52 paid A contributions for 2022, and up to stopping working last year. approx 36/38 I advised them to sign on for credits at that timebut they never did as they decided it was pointless..

Would they qualify for the over 65 payment from start of this year based on having 52 stamps in 2022?

If they qualify, can they back date the claim to the beginning of this year on the basis they were unaware they qualified?
 
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65 last year would make 2021 their governing year.
Assuming they had at least 39 stamps in 2021 they would qualify.
The payment runs from their 65th birthday up until they reach age 66.
So their time to claim has almost run out. They should immediately fill out the online claim form on their mywelfare account and claim. They might get a few weeks of payment if their birthday is late in the month,

I don't know if they would get backdated payments, but they have nothing to lose by trying a backdated claim.
 
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Thanks @ S class

Prior to 2022 they were a class D stamp payer, and have a pension from that, but are struggling a bit financially at the moment on the reduced income.

Citiizen Information has this alternative :

If you do not have 13 paid contributions in the governing contribution year, you must have paid 13 contributions in any of the following years:
  • The current tax year (assuming 2024, so not applicable)
  • The last complete tax year (= 2023 / 38 A stamp)
  • The 2 tax years before the governing contribution year
I wonder if they may qualify based on 2023 contribution?

I agree they are running out of time to submit a claim, and have nothing to loose by trying.

I also told them to either sign on/or pay for voluntary contributions to get enough to qualify for reduced old age pension when they achieve 520, probably at age 70.

They then asked about VC and said were told they only apply if they had been self-employed. I have not seen anything in the terms of VC with that restriction. It just says you must have ceased employment ..
 
They won't be able to qualify with class D in their governing year.
The 13 paid contributions are only usefull if they had a least 39 reckonable credits in their governing year. They might have change of status credits for 2021 and 2022, but these are only reckonable for the Contributory pension, if they have a minimum of either 260 or 520 paid contributions (class A or VC). They are no use for BP65.

They will be able to qualify for VC ias presumably they have a minimum of 520 paid Prsi contributions.
These can be any combination of class A and class D. As their most recent contributions are class A their VC will be Reckonable for the Contributory pension.

They might qualify for a pro rata pension at age 66 if they have a minimum of 260 full rate paid contributions. This would be very small maybe around 30 euro.
 
What happens if a self employed person retires at 65 but has been drawing on an ARF since 60. Does he/she still qualify for the State Benefit at 65 payment or is the ARF distribution considered as income ?
 
Just a follow on from a couple of posts from earlier in the year about my eligibility for Benefit payment at 65 which might help other users of this forum. I'm coming up to 65 in December and although I'm registered for my gov.ie and have a verified account and PSC and could apply on line when I'm 65 I decided to send off for a paper application form just in case I needed to get any information together bearing in mind that it would be only a few days before Christmas. No problem got the form in a couple of days had a read through it and as I wanted to clarify one of the conditions I sent them off an email with my PRSI number and my query. Credit where credit is due they replied within an hour telling me that I qualified for the payment as they had checked with the BP65 section and I met all the criteria. My query was ,the fact that I retired at 61, would this make any difference even though I had the PRSI contributions. Well it didn't because I had signed on for credits in 2022 my governing year and had a full year paid contributions in 2020 so I was ok. To be honest I wasn't going to bother signing for credits but it's so important to do so particularly at the age of 63 if you have paid contributions from previous years. If you are over 62 it's no real problem it's only once a year. The DSP staff were great and very helpful
 
I’d echo the message in the last two posts. Signing on for credits is very important. Like @Peterd i wasn’t going to bother as I had enough Class A contributions for the full SPC. A friend nagged me into claiming credits and I did so at the last possible minute. Had I not done so I would have lost out on the Over 65 Benefit Payment which was worth over €10k to me.

Little known fact. DSP can award credits retrospectively. So if you have already ceased employment and are eligible and haven’t claimed, go and talk to them (Intreo) and explain that you have paid all your life, you didn’t understand the rules and the need to make a claim, you are very sorry and could they please award credits from the date you became eligible. There is no guarantee that you will get either a sympathetic hearing or the credits awarded retrospectively as it’s a discretionary matter, but it’s well worth asking.
 
It is also important for maintaining eligibility for the Treatment Benefit Scheme: https://www.citizensinformation.ie/...ability-and-illness/treatment-benefit-scheme/
 
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