State pension letter

PS. I don't know how old you are, but if you are a few years below state pension age, you could become self-employed. Even if you don't earn anything, you then become eligible to pay voluntary Class 2 NICs, which are cheaper than Class 3. I have a feeling they're changing soon, but currently you can pay £159 a year, which then means you receive about £4.50 a week extra pension for each year paid. You only have to live for a few months after SPA for it to be worthwhile.

I am 64 in a couple of weeks, have 37 years of pension credited so far, I got my pension forcast, and I will not get the full state pension due to being contracted out and having a occupational pension. (COPE)
I rang DWP about this, and decided it was not worth paying anything extra.
It really is about exploring what is best for you, I think it works out at the moment I will get a £160 something per week. I can get another £5 something if I stay at work until I am 66.
It is just about looking at what is best for you. I will check my pension forcast again after the 6th of April.

I had 42 years worth on NI contributions but I don't get the full pension amount as I think this was due to working with Local Government. Just before I received my state pension I was offered to pay 3 years worth of NI's so my monthly pension would increase which I chose to do the amount being £2,300 approx. I have just found out that these extra 3 years paid up front could have been paid for me as I am the carer of two grandchildren every week and could have been paid through Specified Adult Childcare Credits. I was rather annoyed at not knowing this information before I actually paid the addition myself. I have now sent a letter to N.I. trying to claim my money back - not holding my breath through.

That’s a shame, Berylsgranny. The Specified Adult Childcare Credits are getting more publicity these days, but many still don’t know about them.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-insurance-credits-for-adults-who-care-for-a-child-under-12-fact-sheet/specified-adult-childcare-credits-fact-sheet

I check my pension forecast regularly on gov.uk with a Government Gateway login. I retired at 60, and I have enough qualifying years paid in that my forecast predicts I will get a full amount of pension at 66.
I am concerned that government will raise the qualifying years - in which case I will not get a full pension - and anything is possible after them raising the SP age for women by a fast sliding scale from 60 to 66 - but what you see on the Pensions forecast is just that.
I am not scaremongering. I just think we need to be aware.

Maggiemaybe - Thanks. It is a bit annoying but I suppose I only have myself to blame. In fact it was something on GN that prompted me a couple of months ago, hopefully I will be considered for a refund. I have to say though I had a full 39 years of NI's contributions and still did not get the full state pension. You can only trust them I suppose.

I don’t think they’ve been widely publicised until recently, Berylsgranny. My first claim, in 2012, was knocked back as my daughter wasn’t claiming Child Benefit and hadn’t registered her eligibility for it, though clearly she would have been entitled to it. The fact sheet at the time just stated that she had to be eligible for it - I remember quoting this in my appeal letters. The appeal went as far as the Ombudsman with no luck. As you can’t actually submit the claim until the October after the end of the tax year in which you’ve done the childcare, I missed out on the whole year plus the time I’d done to December, when they told me, so 20 months of credits. All DD had to do then was ring a certain number and say she was calling to register her entitlement to Child Benefit, but did not want to claim it. After that it all went smoothly.

Good luck with your claim.

I've spent a sleepless night thinking about this, as I'm not sure how much of the increased pension I'll lose to tax, and whether it is worth spending savings.

The Old Age pension in UK is less than the Income Tax allowance, so you should not pay Tax on it, and still have some Allowance left over for any other occupational Pension.
The pension will increase annually by,now, the Retail Price Index.
And even better news, when you reach 80, it will increase again!
By 25p per week! Don't spend it all at once

It depends whether you have income from other sources Shandy. If you only have your teachers pension and state pension and don't work, you won't pay any tax.

I have only just started to receive my SP and had to apply online for it as no letter arrived telling me when I would be eligible. The online process was easy to complete.
I had been regularly looking at the Gov Gateway to find out how much I was entitled to. Having retired at 58 I was able to make up the missing years up to my official SP retirement through childcare credits which made quite a difference to my eventual payout.
My Teacher's Pension included contracted out years so on balance the childcare credits really helped to give it that extra boost in the end.
On the negative side I now pay more tax, but that's only to be expected as my income is greater. I'm happy with what I've accrued after waiting those extra six years.

Be careful here. I have a Teacher’s s pension and pay tax. The personal tax allowance is £12,500. All your pensions count as income.
I’ll get a reduced state pension in September. I have missing NI years since I left work 8 years ago (personal choice) when I took my occupational pension. I decided not to buy extra years as it would eat into my capital and the extra few pounds a week on which I would pay tax are not needed to maintain my standard of living.

The questions you perhaps could consider are
Do I want to use my capital as it’s hard to replace?
Do I need the extra £xx a week?
How much extra will I get if I have to pay tax on it?
How long will it take to break even?

Do you have someone to talk it through with?

Alygran I too will pay tax on my pension when I get it in just over 2 years time.
They will not tax the state pension but take it at source from the occ pen, but you pay on the whole amount of the 2 pensions together.

I too am in receipt of a teacher's pension and I was already was aware that I will pay more tax when I receive my state pension in May.
I'm not complaining, I will still be better off.

Have to say although I knew I would have to pay tax once I received my State Pension, the amount each month is quite considerable which I wasn't expecting. However it is still worth it. They'll get you all ways

I got an invitation letter at the end of January for a pension due at the end of April, and then another at the end of February confirming that they were processing my application.

I applied for my bus pass this week - now I KNOW that I'm eventually going to get to State Pension age before they move it another six years!!

I have been trying for weeks to get a hold of somebody to check my state pension is correct and I am getting nowhere at all,can anybody guide me with a phone number because the one I have used is not taking calls telling need to call back another time because of Covid...

If you are in England (not sure if the same if you live in Scotland or Wales ) the advertised no. for government pensions is : 0800 731 0469 shinamae .
Is that the number you called?
It does say online that “Phone lines are currently busier than normal owing to Coronavirus”.
Good Luck.

Yes puzzler, that is the one I called and it just isn’t taking any calls, it’s not just busy and I tried a couple of other numbers with the same result ? I then phoned Age UK they are closed at the moment but hopefully will ring me back and maybe they can shed some light on how to actually speak to someone to do with my pension...thanks though..?

I had a similar problem when I tried to claim my deferred state pension Shinamae. Tried online first but that said that if you'd deferred claiming for more than 1 year, you had to phone them and request the forms to be posted to you. I tried to call the phone number provided every day for 2 weeks and it either rang out unanswered or someone answered and said it was the wrong number. I kept a list of every number given and called and who, if anyone, I'd spoken to and what they'd said. By the end of a fortnight, with almost 20 attempts made, I eventually landed with someone who said, "Oh, I can take your details over the phone now, no need to send the forms out to you." 3 days later, I received formal confirmation of my pension amount and due date but I did make a formal complaint, by email, and had an acknowledgement that they would contact me about my "concerns and difficulties", but, surprise, surprise, haven't heard anything further so far.

So frustrating Shinamae.
Don’t give up. E mail? Write a letter? ?

That’s a disgrace Chewbacca. Good on you for persevering.

I know Covid has been a nightmare but I think now it’s just a convenient excuse for not answering the phones, they want us to do everything online, I had made a gateway account a couple of years ago but could not even get into that so I am left a little peeved to put it mildly! ?‍♀️

Puzzler61

That’s a disgrace Chewbacca. Good on you for persevering.

Absolutely ?

Shinamae, a few years ago, I could no longer get into my Gateway account, so I made a new one. No problems ever since.
Access to it has saved me a considerable number of phone calls, including organising a tax rebate.