National Insurance contribution nightmare (advice appreciated!)

[LittleGreenBranch]

Apologies posting here for traffic especially as its late at night and I don't want to panic my parents by calling them.
Just registered on gov.uk for tax stuff and found out that the system has me down as having not paid enough national insurance between 2010 and 2015. However I have not long turned 24 so was in full time education until June 2012 and full time Uni until June 2015. I had a small waitressing job from the age of 16 but this was all taxed as normal (pay slip etc no cash in hand) and I wasn't earning much from it as it was a saturday job. The grand total they have me down as owing is almost £2500! Not sure what to do - it says to send evidence - should I phone the school monday to confirm I attended and the same with Uni?
Sorry quite panicked as we had a crazy high electricity bill this week and money is starting to get me down. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thank you x

You don't need to pay.

Under current rules you will need 35 years of NI contributions to be entitled to full state pension. So you have plenty of working years ahead of you in order to gain those.

Plus you get credits for years when you are in receipt of certain benefits, and IIRC 3 years of juvenile credits for years between age 16 and 19.

Call them, explain the situation, and ask what evidence they need. Don't panic, I'm sure it will be fine.

I had something similar many years ago when a P45 got mislaid as I moved around the country working various jobs within a very short time period (2 weeks or so).

First of all, there’s absolutely nothing you can do at 1am on a Sunday morning - so try to stop panicking - there’s nothing you can do right now. Definitely don’t call your parents.
Call the NI/tax line first thing on Monday, explain your situation and ask how this figure was calculated - explain you were a student etc and don’t understand how this has happened. Sometimes they make mistakes, and a call will straighten things Out, don’t contact schools/ex employers etc until you’ve spoken to the tax office first - there’s no point rushing around doing anything until you know what (if any) action needs to be taken.

Try and relax until then, it’s out of your hands for now so why worry? And mistakes do happen, a few years back I was put on a much higher tax band than I should’ve been - called and it turns out my rubbish ex employer hadn’t told them I’d left...so they had me down as having two jobs - and so on a ridiculously high tax bracket! A call sorted it all out easily.

It's a mistake. Call them on Monday and it'll be sorted out. Don't panic.

Unnecessary panicking above.

It's simply a statement that you haven't got contributing years of NI contributions towards your state pension, and the cost if you wanted to make them up. There is no need to do that at your age.

The tax/NI/general Inland Revenue or whatever they're currently calling it staff are actually very friendly and helpful. Once you've got past the menu of 'press button 1' etc and through to a human you should be fine. Just tell them what you've told us.

Thank you all for your help. I'll call them Monday, find out what evidence I need and go from there. Thanks again x

As ChinkChink said - you don't need to pay it.

To get a state pension you need 35 years of NI full year contributions. All it's saying is that in those years you didn't pay enough to count as a full year - but you've got plenty of time to collect 35 years of work before you retire!

It's letting you know that you can make a voluntary payment to make it a full year if you want to - but they certainly won't make you.

You honestly don't even need to call them -
ChinkChink is 100% correct on this one so absolutely no reason to stress about it.

They're offering you the opportunity to top up the NI for years in which there is a shortfall so it doesn't count as a qualifying year for state pension (shortfall doesn't mean you didn't pay any NI, just that you didn't earn enough throughout that tax year to pay NI for the whole year).

There is no obligation to top it up and you don't have to speak to HMRC about it if you're not planning to top up.

My record looks exactly the same, there's several years between 18 and 25 where I didn't earn enough to pay a full year's NI to make it a qualifying year due to studying and working here and there. I've never topped any of them up, I'm now 34 and the last 8 years are all qualifying years, plus I've got another 34 years to work before I retire!!

The only reason to top them up is if you're going to end up short of the 35 qualifying years needed for state pension. At 24 you've got plenty of time to get 35 years in, so nothing to worry about and really no need to speak to HMRC.

Oops cross posted with user, who is much more concise than me!