AIBU to think claiming two state pensions seems unethical?

Clearly the OP was not talking about whether it was legal.

Exactly. I paid voluntary class three contributions when I lived overseas- think it was about £600 per year when I moved in 1995.

Clearly the Op hasn't googled though, has she?

Quite. Amazing how many on this thread seem to think legal = ethically fine.

All voted for by many of those same pensioners.

Well OP @CoffeeAndCats3 , once they are dead you will be able to address this terrible moral inequality, won’t you? If your parents work abroad and are able to afford to pay voluntary NICs, I surmise they will be well off. So when you get your lovely inheritance, you can ensure you don’t avoid any inheritance tax and could return the cost of their SPs to HMT. That will make you feel better, so will you do that? I’m sure AI can easily assess the cost of an indexed 2xSP for you.

I cannot get frothy at the mouth about this. If those who do look at the numbers, they are relatively small in the scheme of many trillions in Gvt, or even the welfare spend. As PP said the closed loophole affects only 46000 people. UK nationals who have lived and worked abroad all their lives but voluntarily paid NICs is a small group. There are more impactful, widespread and fruitful avenues of welfare reform much more worth a froth.

You do know that legal is not the same as moral right? That they are two different words with two different meanings?

Thanks, but I think we're all capable of doing our own googling.

The voluntary contribution to top up your years paid is nearer £900 per year not £200.

What "mmoral loophole" are you referring to? If it's the lawful state of affairs regarding NI top-op contributions from overseas the OP's parents benefited from, then it no longer exists, as has been pointed out by several posters several times.

No one’s saying it’s illegal, they’re pointing out it’s an immoral loophole which, at a time when the conversation is largely centred around the emptiness of the state’s public purse, it should be illegal.

FROM GEMINI

It is completely understandable why this looks sketchy from the outside, but you can reassure yourself: your parents haven't scammed the system. What they’ve done is entirely legal, highly publicized in expat circles, and actually a fully sanctioned HMRC mechanism.

They are capitalizing on a system called Voluntary National Insurance (NI) Contributions from abroad. Here is exactly how it works and why they are allowed to "double dip."

1. The Low-Cost Loophole: Voluntary NI Contributions

• The Cost: It was astonishingly cheap—about £3.50 a week, or roughly £182 a year to buy a full qualifying year of the UK pension.
• The Return: For just £182 paid, they bought an extra year of pension that pays out several hundred pounds every single year in retirement.

1. Why "Double Dipping" is Allowed

1. In the UK: They secured a pension by maintaining their National Insurance record out of their own pockets via voluntary payments.
2. In their new country: They earned a local pension by living, working, and paying income taxes/social security there for 30+ years.

Because they fulfilled the legal criteria for both independent systems, they are legally entitled to collect both. It isn't welfare or a means-tested benefit; it’s a state retirement fund they technically paid to participate in.
A Quick Reality Check on the "Life of Riley"
While they might feel quite smug about it now, there is a catch depending on where they moved. If your parents emigrated to a country like Australia, Canada, or New Zealand, the UK government freezes their state pension. This means they will receive the exact dollar amount they qualified for at retirement age, but it will never increase with inflation. Over a 20-year retirement, the real-world purchasing power of that UK pension will steadily shrink.
So, while it definitely feels a bit cheeky—especially since they don't strictly need the cash and have rental income—they didn't pull a fast one on the taxman. They just filled out Form CF83, paid their dues to HMRC every year while living abroad, and the system worked exactly as it was designed to do!

Good for them!
Why aren't you pleased for them, if they can have a comfortable old age and not rely on you isn't that a nice thing?

The reason why the state pension is underfunded and old people are living in horrible poverty is not because of pensioners, it is because of complete mismanagement by a dozen or more governments

Yes they do. I was replying to the ridiculous
“if it’s permitted by the rules how can it be unethical?”

You’ll still have paid in way less over your lifetime than the amount you’ll receive in pension (presuming you don’t die in early years of retirement).

The taxes you paid in your teens and twenties will have been hardly anything (unless you were an unusually very high earner at that age) and will have contributed to the services you benefitted from while you were here such as education and healthcare so don’t try and justify it to yourself.

Then the UK government needs to enact laws to prevent this.

I'm in the fortunate position of benefitting from this arrangement prior to it being closed off. I pay class 2 contributions every year and when I retire I will receive a full (hopefully if I paid the correct number of years) UK state pension and 3/4 of the state pension of my current country of residence. It does feel a bit cheeky, but I remind myself that I lived in the UK until I was 35 (UK national) and worked from the age of 15 until I emigrated. During that time I never had cause to claim for any benefits (apart from 5 months of child benefit for first born). So no, I'm not sorry.

Did you not know there’s a difference between legal and unethical?

Amazon and Starbucks legally avoid tax, is it morally ok?

We live abroad and dh pays tax in the UK on his government pension.
Inheritance tax would be paid in the country we live in.
We get British state pension which is taxed in the country we live in.
We dont get a state pension from the country we live in.
As we have an S1 we can use healthcare in both the UK and the country we live in. Our health care is paid for by the UK even if used in other country.

Yes but a) most people do work and pay in
b) of those people who don’t make contributions, they live here and the majority will contribute to UK society in some way- bearing and raising children, being unpaid carers or even just down to spending their benefits money in the UK economy.

No, you don't have tonwork a single day i your life to be entitled to a full state pension. In OPs parents case 35 years is a meaningless number anyway it only applies to people born after 2000. In addition it is not work that it is based on it is NI credits. You can build up a full entitlement by claiming child benefit or one of the other benefits that gives credits or by paying voluntary contributions.

Healthcare of retired British citizens living in EU countries like France is paid for by Britain, excepting some fairly low co-payments. It's a good deal because most EU countries have superior healthcare to the NHS for which the French, German etc paid higher taxes. So, the British retirees paid lower taxes when working then when they need healthcare in old age living abroad, the British taxpayer, who gets inferior care, pays for them. However, many other countries don't provide free language translators like the NHS does.

I don't know about domiciliary and residential care for the British elderly abroad though am aware that some European countries pay a social care levy for those in employment and even in retirement in a few places, so they pay more in collectively than we do in Britain.

Isn’t it similar to child benefit? My Polish friend claims child benefit from Poland and here.

I should have said HMRC get back on the IHT claim to say what tax, if any, is due.

It depends on where you're resident for tax purposes and the arrangements between that country and the UK.

I can only speak about Australia

If you pay tax to HMRC on UK- based income from abroad and die, your executor needs to make an IHT claim, and declare assets. If you sell a house, e.g. one you've been renting out, you have to make a CGT declaration and pay any tax due by three months of the sale.