Thanks for that, I will give them a call.
Key Post UK State Pension - Make voluntary contributions to qualify for UK pension on top of Irish pension
- Thread starter DannyBoyD
- Start date
Hi,
I am looking at topping up from 3 years to 10 years to meet minimum
1) if they assess my application and they decide I am class 3 do they automatically start taking payment on processing of application for the top ups or do they write to me again to confirm I am happy to pay.
2) if I top up to ten years is there a chance that the government may change the rules and I would not be entitled to the money on retirement years. I am currently 30+ years away from retirement year.
Thanks. !!
I am looking at topping up from 3 years to 10 years to meet minimum
1) if they assess my application and they decide I am class 3 do they automatically start taking payment on processing of application for the top ups or do they write to me again to confirm I am happy to pay.
2) if I top up to ten years is there a chance that the government may change the rules and I would not be entitled to the money on retirement years. I am currently 30+ years away from retirement year.
Thanks. !!
I agree this thread is a long one; however all of these questions have already been answered.
You can do a search on the thread & not have to read every one.
Failing that you could search my user name for replies.
Damien King
New Member
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- 2
Hi Trish, Thanks for the Reply.
So You just guestimated your dates and put these on the form?
im thinking of just mentioning on the Additional info box that Ive tried to be as accurate as possible but it was nearly 20 years ago so any errors in dates were unintentional.
I was thinking the same myself re: signing on in the UK which I wasn't Doing before I left.
Currently self employed as well
Yes, I just lumped the first few years after my return under “various employments”. I’ve been in the same job now for almost 20 years and that seemed to satisfy them. That’s my experience anyway, although I know some people were asked for more information and to detail their employment. I honestly wouldn’t be able to give accurate info as it’s almost 30 years ago!
Dr Strangelove
Registered User
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My guess is they are obliged to ask but once you make a reasonable effort to comply the box is ticked easily at their end.
Maybe worth trying to figure that employment history. No idea how accurate it needs to be, but on the application form for the Irish State pension, it does ask for all of your employment history. Name and address of employer, start and finish dates etc.
Interesting comment about the application process for a state pension. Question I have about this is how does one separately apply for the Irish State Pension and the UK state pension to ensure that the contributions aren't merged into one single pension as the application form requires both the Irish PRSI number and the UK NI number? Could anyone who has been through this care to advise?
I will be going through the process for my Irish state pension shortly and will update how I get on. To my knowledge, both pensions are separate, but both require your work history so I see no problem providing that. If it is not in your interest to merge contributions for a bigger Irish pension, then they won't.
partnership
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My understanding is they are not merged. There is a formula they use to decide how much you get. It is not the same amount as if all the contributions were irish.
Hi, thanks for that. I would be interested to hear how you get on. I have looked at the application form for the Irish State pension. It asks to fill in details for all of your working life. In my case thats the UK and latterly Ireland. I can not see anywhere on the document where you can choose to keep your pension contributions seperate or to merge them.
Thanks for the reply. It might be buyers remorse at this stage (having just paid back 18 years) I was explaining it to a friend recently and he didn't believe that it was possible to get two state pensions and that I had wasted my money, especially if I had paid back NIC years that overlapped with PRSI years. So I went looking for a document which explains why this is possible and I couldn't find one. I would have thought citizens information.ie might have a worked example or something. The application for the state pension wasn't exactly clear on the seperation of pensions between Ireland and UK. Can anyone point to a document which explains all this?
partnership
Registered User
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https://www.citizensinformation.ie/...t/social-insurance-contributions-from-abroad/
This gives the formula. Yes you can get both pensions if you read through threads on here there are people who bought back ni getting the pension now.
Thanks for the reply. That formula seems to suggest combining the pensions from two jurisdictions. It's a bit of a strange formula also referenced here as part of a section under pro-rata pension https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/d...-bilateral-agreements/#aggregation-of-records
Yes it is & no you haven't.
partnership
Registered User
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It only combines them to get a notional rate. In reality you will get the value of the Irish years only I think
I believe that PRSI and NICs (UK) can be added together to help one “qualify” for an Irish COAP ie to reach the minimum 520 PRSI contributions …..below which one gets nothing from Ireland.
As per posts above and assuming one qualifies for the COAP there is then a formula (which doesn’t make a lot of sense to me) which considers your NICs record …which can result in a lower pension payment amount than if you only had PRSI contributions. If it is lower my expectation or hope or understanding is that such calculation is ignored and any alternative and higher benefit payment calculation amount is paid instead.
I’ll qualify this by saying that I’ve been trying to gain clarity on this for a while and I’m still not confident that I have.
As per posts above and assuming one qualifies for the COAP there is then a formula (which doesn’t make a lot of sense to me) which considers your NICs record …which can result in a lower pension payment amount than if you only had PRSI contributions. If it is lower my expectation or hope or understanding is that such calculation is ignored and any alternative and higher benefit payment calculation amount is paid instead.
I’ll qualify this by saying that I’ve been trying to gain clarity on this for a while and I’m still not confident that I have.
I received the below letter today. I only posted the form to them 8 weeks ago so this seems very fast from what I read here. I can see there are some of you are very well versed on this issue on here, so can someone who has a clear understanding of this, tell me what does this mean?
Can I ask was this successful for you to pay via Revolut??
Having spend an age reading on here I rang the HMRC office and the nice lady on there was absolutely adamant that I could not use Revolut to pay them? As a means of establishing an exact Sterling amount I am not sure of another way.