am i paying too much national insurance?

[unclebumpkin]

You have to pay national insurance is you're self-employed. You also pay ni payments if you're employed by somebody else. You also get NI payments if you're on jobseekers allowance. Can somebody please explain how this all works? Am I just paying too much national insurance? I am unsure whether to stop being registered as self employed at the moment. Or do you just get the money back somehow? Sorry for my ignorance...

[flowery]

Yes you pay (or can pay) NI in all those situations, but you wouldn't be claiming JSA and employed and self-employed all at the same time, so it shouldn't be an issue.

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

www.gov.uk/national-insurance/overview

[unclebumpkin]

re: flowery, no not all 3. but i have been self employed and on jsa. also been employed and self employed.

[unclebumpkin]

guess it may be worth staying self-employed just in case i can make use of receipts from the past few years just in case things 'work out' this year. guess once you leave self-employed status they become null and void.

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

"You’re employed and self-employed
You might be an employee but also do self-employed work. In this case your employer will take care of your Class 1 payments and you have to pay Class 2 and 4 payments for your self-employed work.

How much you pay when employed and self-employed depends on your combined income from all your jobs."
www.gov.uk/national-insurance/national-insurance-contributions-how-much-you-pay

[nannynick]

I am employed and self employed. Do very little self employed work, so I get a NI exemption certificate.

CF10 - Exemption to pay class 2 NI

I would love to know what level of NI you have to be paying to qualify for various things, such as state pension. I have a 40 hour a week job at the moment but what happens if that drops in hours... how will I know when it gets to a level that means I won't pay enough NI and need to stop having the NI exemption on the self employed income?

[unclebumpkin]

that's a good point - i may as well stay self employed and just out of paying the class 2s if I want to...

[unclebumpkin]

advice as to whether to do that? ...

[nannynick]

Are you currently employed and earning over 10k a year (april to april)?

I don't know at what amount it makes sense to not pay Class 2 NI on self employed small earnings. Your income from employed work needs to pay a certain amount so you get the credit towards pension, maternity that sort of thing but I don't know how much you need to be earning.

[nannynick]

www.gov.uk/state-pension/eligibility
Looks like you need to be earning £153 a week from the employed job.

[unclebumpkin]

i imagine i'd either be earning over £153 a week - or i'd be signing on... although when you do sign on, there's sometimes a slight delay, do you lose contributions for that period....

[unclebumpkin]

this stuff makes my head hurt...

i assume the hmrc don't just automatically refund you the money then...

[Cinnamoncookie]

I'm mostly self-employed and occasionally do contact work which has class 1 deducted. I can offset the class 1 I pay in a year against my class 4 liability for that year.

[unclebumpkin]

do i have until april 5th to claim this money back again? i think i get 2 ni class 2 bills and have just paid one that was sent out in early october to be paid end of january. there was another about 6 months before, i believe.

[unclebumpkin]

i had a year a about maybe 7 or 8 years ago when i was on payroll for a company and worked most of that year but there were few months when i wasn't there but was paying NI contributions through the job and earned in that year enough to pay tax... but was also paying NI as a self employed person (and not making much money as doing that all) and i've got records of paying the quarterly class 2 payments but none of getting any automatic refunds...

[unclebumpkin]

says in this article (21st Dec 2014) you can claim back for 3 years... unless the rules have changed very recently... anybody know?

www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/tax/11300887/Why-you-may-have-been-paying-the-wrong-National-Insurance-for-years.html

[unclebumpkin]

can you email these people? or is there just no doubt a prohibitively expensive phone line you have to call instead?

i think they close at the weekends anyway.