Key Post UK State Pension - Make voluntary contributions to qualify for UK pension on top of Irish pension

Tobyboy said:
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? View attachment 8907
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The piece on page 2 about needing the pension service to confirm you pension will increase if you pay a shortfall is slightly odd, surely by default it will and what form/medium does this confirmation come in ?
 
Coffeeortea said:
The piece on page 2 about needing the pension service to confirm you pension will increase if you pay a shortfall is slightly odd, surely by default it will and what form/medium does this confirmation come in ?
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The confirmation is verbal over the phone. In your case based on the fact that you have only 3 years contributions it's a given that it will. However there are people who through work might already have enough contributions and in theory could receive the same letter above and purchase the above not understanding that for them it's a waste of money as they will get no benefit for overpaying their NICs.
 
I now have 35 years of contributions but a £15 gap exists between the current full UK state pension and my estimate. Is it possible to buy a 36th and 37th year to gain the full pension or is it capped out at 35 years ?

Edit, The answer was on the first page of the Gov.uk new state pension website! "If you were contracted out, you will usually need more than 35 qualifying years to get the full rate of new State Pension" .
 
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Codeblue said:
I now have 35 years of contributions but a £15 gap exists between the current full UK state pension and my estimate. Is it possible to buy a 36th and 37th year to gain the full pension or is it capped out at 35 years ?

Edit, The answer was on the first page of the Gov.uk new state pension website! "If you were contracted out, you will usually need more than 35 qualifying years to get the full rate of new State Pension" .
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In my case I need 39 years of contributions. The explanation provided by DWP was because I was contracted out for several years. DWP was able to tell me that 4 extra years were required for a maximum pension benefit.
 
Morning
i am currently going through this whole process ,I have used a well known agent to date and am now about to go ahead a make a payment to UK Revenue to bring my contributions up to date ,my wife is in a similar situation to myself as we both worked in the UK at the same time ,we have received a forecast for her (we are trying to do this ourselves without using the agent ) and are now in the process of filling out the cf83 form , my questions are as follows
1) her NI number shows her maiden name ,weve since married ,should we flag this now to revenue
2) does the UK pensions/revenue have access to our Irish tax systems ,ie can they know when you might have been unemployed or on maternity leave ( I ask this as it seems when I sent through my work history to the agent it showed 2 periods of unemployment here in Ireland and I noticed on my statement for contributions from the UK that these 2 years contributions amount to 800 pounds each as opposed to183 for every other year)
thank you
Canine
 
Ref point 1 : I would provide both names on the form.
Ref point 2 : I would provide all of the details as accurate as possible in terms of your employment history. In my case I was asked for a copy of my PRSI record. If it results in you paying 2 years at Class 3 then it's still good value.
As far as I understand there is a bilateral arrangement between Ireland and UK. I would assume that there is some information sharing between the two.
Aside(1) : To be perfectly honest, it's not clear to me the exact reasons why HMRC care whether a person is/was employed/unemployed while the person is living in Ireland, especially if the person never intends to return to the UK, unless there is some close sharing of data between the two jurisdictions.
Aside(2) : Maybe you could ask the agent that you are using to fill in some of the reasons why and how it's possible to receive 2 state pensions and why HMRC care about employment status above and also the amount of information sharing between the jurisdictions?
 
ohrose said:
Aside(1) : To be perfectly honest, it's not clear to me the exact reasons why HMRC care whether a person is/was employed/unemployed while the person is living in Ireland, especially if the person never intends to return to the UK, unless there is some close sharing of data between the two jurisdictions.
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Because they are the rules! I don't follow the logic myself for the rules but it is what it is. If you're not in employment you pay the more expensive Class 3 (still good value).

ohrose said:
Aside(2) : Maybe you could ask the agent that you are using to fill in some of the reasons why and how it's possible to receive 2 state pensions
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Because the rules of the two jurisdictions allow it! There are 31 pages of thread on this.

ohrose said:
also the amount of information sharing between the jurisdictions?
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There is routine information sharing for when people need to aggregate contributions. DSP and HMRC exchange records on request from each other. I don't know if there is on-demand "look-up" access to each other's databases but UK-Ireland Bilateral Convention on Social Security allows for exchange of relevant information.

Canine said:
does the UK pensions/revenue have access to our Irish tax systems ,ie can they know when you might have been unemployed or on maternity leave ( I ask this as it seems when I sent through my work history to the agent it showed 2 periods of unemployment here
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I suspect HMRC simply took your work history at face value.
 
Do you have to still be working in Ireland to follow up the English pension?? Or can you be retired here? I worked there for nearly 4 years in the 80’s. And haven’t started process yet but thinking of retiring here
 
Hi
as I have said in an earlier post ,I have used an agent to process my application with the pension process ,we are trying to do my wifes ourselves and she has since registered on the GOVUK site ,from that we can see that all her historical back payments are all 800 pounds approx. (class 3 I assume ) ,she has yet to submit the CF83 form ,can I assume from this that all payments are Class 3 until the form is submitted and then should revert to Class 2
 
Your wife will likely have to show that she was working to avail of class 2 rates.

I did this by way of sending a cover letter with my form CF38 and a copy of my PRSI history showing that I've been in full time employment since moving.

If it is the case that your wife didn't work some years then the higher Class 3 rates will apply to those years.
 
Canine said:
Hi
as I have said in an earlier post ,I have used an agent to process my application with the pension process ,we are trying to do my wifes ourselves and she has since registered on the GOVUK site ,from that we can see that all her historical back payments are all 800 pounds approx. (class 3 I assume ) ,she has yet to submit the CF83 form ,can I assume from this that all payments are Class 3 until the form is submitted and then should revert to Class 2
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I was told by HMRC with the online portal it will only show class 3 amounts by default, and should not be taken as an indication of what class she will be given.
 
blanketyblank said:
Do you have to still be working in Ireland to follow up the English pension?? Or can you be retired here? I worked there for nearly 4 years in the 80’s. And haven’t started process yet but thinking of retiring here
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Are you working in Ireland or have you already retired?
 
Applied online April 10th just gone and got a letter today confirming I can pay Cat 2. Far faster timeline than most have had to endure. I must go back and read the Revolut payment instructions. God bless ye all ye lovely bastards
 
Ditto. Applied on April 22nd & got same letter late last week. Happy days. From speaking with others who have already done it some months ago paying via Revolut definitely the way to go.

Worked for 4 years in UK in the early 90’s; have been given 8 years credit; can now make 18 years AVCs for just less than 3k sterling in total; will pay about £170 annually for next 9 years & then access a full UK state pension @ 67.

Mad isn’t it but who’s complaining !.
 
Hi All, Quick Q - after working in the UK 6+yrs, I came back to Ireland for 1 month, then left to work in Canada for 1 year. I then returned to Ireland where I've been working since. Does anyone know if declaring Canada on the CF83 will impact my success of an approved application for the pension?
 
DannyBoyD said:
Got you. I think I'd stick with annual payment, easier to track.
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Can anyone who pays annual payment explain a little more about how to maintain it over time? For example, if I make my first annual payment on July 1st this year, does that mean HMRC will send me a letter requesting payment every July from now until I retire?
 
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