UK Times reporting on pension buybacks

I seen a similar article in the Financial Times a couple of weeks ago. I would think that the UK Government will eventually close off the loophole but hopefully won't affect those already in the system
 
The article focuses on foreigners but the same applies to brits who moved abroad. So people who left Uk to live in Spain at say 30 having worked for only a few years in the UK are able to benefit too.
 
Annieindublin said:
The article focuses on foreigners but the same applies to brits who moved abroad. So people who left Uk to live in Spain at say 30 having worked for only a few years in the UK are able to benefit too.
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I’ve always assumed that this is who the UK’s incredibly generous voluntary contribution regime is aimed at.

The UK used to combine very easy eligibility with a very low pension but the triple lock in place since the early 2010s has seen real increases.

UK CPI inflation 2004-2024 was 88% but pension rate increased 113%, so about a 13% increase in real terms.
 
There was a similar article in the New Statesman last week:

Exclusive: the state pension is being siphoned off abroad - And HMRC has no idea where it’s going to.
www.newstatesman.com

Exclusive: the state pension is being siphoned off abroad

And HMRC has no idea where it’s going to.
www.newstatesman.com www.newstatesman.com

This is the only real item of interest from it:
What we do know is that there was a huge surge in voluntary NICs payments as the 5 April deadline approached. On 4 February, HMRC said that 37,000 people had made payments. When I submitted freedom of information requests for updates on these figures, however, HMRC told me that by the week of 31 March, this number had more than trebled: 138,000 people had topped up more than 303,000 years’ worth of National Insurance records in order to secure or increase their state pension entitlement.

What we don’t know is how many of these payments came from people who are not British, and who are not living in Britain.
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Plus some commentary on same on UK reddit forums:

 
redchariot said:
I would think that the UK Government will eventually close off the loophole
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The Conservatives had been trying to scrap Class 2 contributions since 2016 but it never happened.

4.15 The government believes it is right that everyone makes a fair contribution towards the State Pension, so the facility for those working abroad (and who are not UK insured) to pay Class 2 NICs voluntarily will no longer be available after the abolition of Class 2 NICs.

 
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Corola said:
The government believes it is right that everyone makes a fair contribution towards the State Pension, so the facility for those working abroad (and who are not UK insured) to pay Class 2 NICs voluntarily will no longer be available after the abolition of Class 2 NICs.
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Class 3 NICs are still very good value, although not incredibly good value the way Class 2 NICs are.


rollick said:
Plus some commentary on same on UK reddit forums:
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It’s a bit odd that HMRC can’t be clear as to how many state pension recipients are resident abroad, although in fairness many could be using UK address and bank account.
 
They could i suspect report how many have used overseas addresses. It might not be all, as indeed some people may have used UK addresses but as was often repeated here you still get a physical letter about the payments so a certain cohort have registered a non-Uk address. But they may not have extracted this particular field for a report yet.

And while I can see the potential headlines there are a lot of Brits resident abroad who are anticipating this pension and have always expected to receive it and have been topping up all along. So while changing the rules is news the existence of the scheme isn’t news to a lot of people.
 
You would wonder why they allowed so many people to buy back years so cheaply at class 2, the guts of £190 per year. To buy back years in this country costs the guts of 600 euros I believe and can only be done for 6 years at most
 
Yeah, if they had charged a couple of grand it’d still be worthwhile for a lot of people. At those rates it’s not going to cover the admin costs!

But you can imagine the outcry if there was a fee of a few thousand… I was talking to some UK friends who have retired early and they are grumbling about having to pay class 3 for a few years. Which they realise is a lot lower that NI they would’ve paid if working .
 
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