That is a great story! Well done!
Key Post UK State Pension - Make voluntary contributions to qualify for UK pension on top of Irish pension
- Thread starter DannyBoyD
- Start date
Have you completed CF83? Are you paying voluntary NICs?
For most people it is better to claim the two pensions separately.
Re your last point Danny can you explain what you mean please? For this question I am assuming "better" means financially advantageous.
We are approaching a time when payment ages diverge (IRL = age 66 and UK= 67) so they would be separate for that reason anyway.
When you say "better" does it imply less "better" to disclose the other pension entitlement when applying for either one? If yes, in what way?
This is a genuine question as it's not something that I am clear on despite all my reading on the topic.
Sure I got that thanks…..I’m hoping to be in this situation myself and so I’m genuinely interested to know what are the specific details that lead you to conclude that it is “better for most people to claim the two pensions separately”?
Haha. Got it. Thanks for sharing that pearl.
Seriously though, this is a question I've seen here on a few occasions and I've not seen anyone conclusively prove which is the "best" approach. When I saw your post I thought someone had finally established which approach is "best" and might be willing to share their rationale.
Update on this. Still nothing showing on my online account, but after a further call 2 weeks ago I received a letter in the post this morning confirming the payment received and detailing the years it has been allocated to.
Not sure what is going on with with online record. For example, when I log in it tells me that my tax for the year ending 5 April 2024 "has not yet been calculated". When I go to the check progress section it tells me that the CF83 application I made in May 2023 is "In progress". Seems like nothing at all has updated on my online record since May 2023 and it is frozen in time!
My understanding is that you need 40 years contributions to get a full Irish pension and that any years done in uk or other uk country count towards the 40. I’m just not clear how many years I have done in uk from the hmrc app and I was just wanted to know did anyone else have that issue
I rather thought I did exactly that.
My understanding (I'm open to correction) is that its an either or situation.
You either use your UK contributions to gain a UK pension, as you seem to already be doing, or you seek to have them added to your Irish contributions to enhance your pension here.
The idea that one could make their UK contributions "double job" for them seems ludicrous.
Yes I’m paying the voluntary NICs. My question is about the Irish pension although I know this is a thread for uk pensions. I won’t have enough Irish years alone to make up the full 40 years but my uk years (which at this moment in time count toward the 40 although this may change in the future) aren’t clear on the app. I was there 15 years but spent some in uni. I seem to have between 12 and 14 years there.
No not for me sorry.
CLAIMING TOGETHER
As I see it one can apply for the Irish pension coming up to age 66 and at the same time disclose through the application process that you have a foreign pension entitlement. In that event, I understand that the Irish authorities then will claim the foreign pension entitlement on your behalf. How that will work after the UK and Irish state pension entitlement ages diverge between 2026 and 2028, I don't know.
The Irish authorities normally (at the moment anyway) perform a series of pension benefit calculations to establish the best one for that individual. In the event that a foreign pension entitlement is disclosed this entails an additional calculation and again the best outcome is offered to the claimant. (The bit in italics is an assumption on my part but reasonable I think).
CLAIMING SEPERATELY
If one decides not to disclose a foreign pension entitlement to the Irish authorities ( I've no idea what sort of implications stating an untruth may have) ...... this entails applying directly (and separately) to the foreign authority for your pension and likely removes one of the Irish pension benefit calculations mentioned above. Potentially this may be a negative outcome for the Irish pension (ie less money). If we take the UK system as an example, I don't recall seeing anything to suggest that having an Irish pension entitlement affects the UK benefit amount calculation. Perhaps you have.
You have stated that "For most people it is better to claim the two pensions separately."
I'd simply like to know how you arrived at that conclusion because at this stage of my examination of a complex topic, it makes no difference, or if it does, it may be "better" (ie = more pension money) to claim them together. I have a genuine interest in a sensible answer.
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So, I have just claimed my Irish pension. I had to list my full employment history including 15 years spent in UK. I had 23 Irish years. My pension was calculated on my Irish contributions only, and my Irish pension is based on having 20-29 years, and is therefore less than the full Irish state pension (€236/week). I did not say I was also applying for a UK pension, and they did not ask. I could have asked for my UK years to be added to my Irish ones but then I'd only get the full Irish pension and no UK one. I had already decided to top up my UK pension, and I am now also receiving that. Definitely it is better financially to claim the two separately but you still declare your work history to both countries. No untruths at all.
Thanks for contributing Stitcher and congratulations on achieving retirement. I recently posted a question on here asking for personal experiences of claiming both pensions (UK and Ireland) but got no responses. This is helpful.
I’m interested in your comment that you could have achieved a full Irish pension if you’d added the UK NICS to your Irish PRSI record. May I ask how do you know this as I’ve seen this come up a few times on AAM and as far as I can recall it’s been discredited.
I’ll separately look up the Irish calculation formula to consider UK NICS and share it here.
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This is the Irish State Pension application form apparently called SPC1.
The intro section states that "If you live in Ireland and you have previously lived or worked in an EU country, the UK or a country with which Ireland has a Bilateral Social Security Agreement, we will apply for a pension to that country on your behalf."
Section 13 of the form asks: "13. Have you ever lived or worked outside of Ireland?"
It seems from your post above that you answered yes to this question .... do you know if the DSP contacted the UK for details of your UK NICS record or not?
Maybe they did (unbeknownst to you) and used these to calculate the best Irish state pension that you could be entitled to. Maybe they also applied for the UK state pension on your behalf as the form says they will but that your application took over?
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These seem to be the latest operational guidelines for the Department of Social Protection (DSP).
There is a section in there dealing with foreign social insurance contributions (in your case NICS).
In a nutshell they may be used:
(1) To help you qualify for an Irish State Pension (This is different from calculating the actual benefit amount).
(2) To calculate your Irish State pension benefit amount by using the following formula:
Calculation of rate of payment
The rate of pension, where insurance contributions in another country are being combined with Irish contributions, is calculated as follows:
Step 1:
The notional pension is calculated. Notional pension is that which would be payable if all social insurance contributions, both full-rate Irish and non-Irish, were treated as Irish contributions. The full-rate Irish and non-Irish reckonable contributions are therefore added together and the total is then divided by the number of years to get the yearly average number of contributions.
Step 2:
The following formula is then used
A multiplied by B divided by C
(AxB)/C
A = the notional rate of pension i.e. the rate (personal plus increase for a qualified adult, if applicable (see below re qualified adult)) which would be payable if all social insurance, both full-rate Irish and foreign, was treated as full rate Irish social insurance.
B = the no. of full rate Irish contributions
C = the total no. of contributions (full rate Irish + foreign)
So my conclusion is that you must declare any foreign work history when applying for an Irish State Pension and if you do, an additional calculation (as above) is performed (in addition to TCA and Average). Presumably the best outcome of the three (or maybe more than 3) is the Irish pension that is offered. I also conclude that declaring foreign work history to the DSP as part of this process has no affect on any UK pension entitlement.
I'm not claiming to be an expert on this but I've seen so many contradictory statements about how this works on AAM, I was pleased to see DannyBoyD make such a definitive statement on the topic and simply asked what was the rationale behind it.
In my case I expect to achieve maximum UK state pension and about 85% of the Irish state pension. I have the time left to pay additional UK NICS (after the min no required of 35) and I am prepared to do so if it means that I can boost my Irish state pension beyond 85%. That's my motivation for trying to establish clarity on this topic - From what I've established so far I think that's not an option.
Therefore for now and from the limited information to hand I believe it is advantageous to apply for both Irish and foreign pensions together through the Irish system. This may change when the UK state retirement age changes to 67 in a few years.
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You can do whatever you like, I won't stop you.
But the idea of this entire thread is to help people pay UK NICs so they can claim a UK state pension in addition to any Irish state pension and / or any private pension they may have.
The tone you are using in some of your comments may be the reason you dont get responses. This has been an unbelievably helpful thread, led by @DannyBoyD and others. Whether we take the advice or not is up to each of us. I have very happily paid my extra contributions because of the reassurance I have received here, but everyone can make up their own mind.
I am trying to make up my own mind.... as we will all do.
A clear statement was made about the application approach when entitled to two state pensions and despite requests for substantiation I've not seen anything helpful.
For the record I applaud DannyBoyD’s efforts on here too as many Irish people will surely benefit from his energy and knowledge.