NI contributions 38 years ago

[Deedee248]

My DH has recently been looking ahead to his pension benefits etc and has discovered that according to HMRC, he (allegedly) made no NI contributions for the years 1984-5, 1985-6 and 1986-7. The fact is that he was employed full time in the same (fairly low-paid) job from 1983 to 1991. He paid NI contributions for 1983-4, and from 1987 onwards, so we cannot understand why he would not have paid any for the three years mentioned above. HMRC have written to him just saying they have no record of him having paid contributions and unless he can provide evidence that he DID pay, ie a P60, then those years will not count as qualifying years.

This is plainly ridiculous. Nobody keeps a P60 for 38 years! I have some financial paperwork going back to the late nineties, but bearing in mind that this is all pre-digital times, how on earth are we supposed to be able to prove this?

I would be very grateful if anyone has any advice on this, or has experienced a similar situation please.

It's no consolation but HMRC are a mess, 'working ' from home still. I pay voluntary NICs. Direct Debit set up two years ago. Just found out it stopped being taken after a few months. I've had enough so my marvellous MP is riding into battle on my account. It's about time the public sector started doing their bloody jobs in the place they are contracted to do it and provide the service they are paid to provide.

@Princessglittery thanks - I actually did go and check on the HMRC website after reading this thread and I've only got 4 years unaccounted for, which were all when I was a student and working in the SU bar when they did that thing where you only got paid weekly up to the limit for NI, then got the rest as backpay at the end of each term so I wasn't expecting any contributions for those years anyway.

@onemouseplace thats good.

OP was your DH a member of a pension scheme at the same time? Many schemes of that type were contracted out of SERPS and they should still keep a record of the NICs that they notified to HMRC. If he contacts the pension scheme they can check their records and give him a printout of what they hold for his NICs for those years.

Ideally there should be a mirror record with HMRC as schemes of this type had to reconcile their records to HMRC’s records a few years’ ago but it’s not an exact science.

Ive never thought to do this, I have them from the past 15 years or so but not from my early jobs. I'll see what's at my mums and start keeping them together
I had an issue years ago that an employer was paying my no into the wrong no number, I remember going the tax office with my mum and dad to sort it
Thanks for sharing

3 years shouldn’t effect him should it? I have 3 missing years from when I was a student and in low paid work but it won’t stop me getting full pension (as things stand).

It depends how old you are. The change in 2016 has meant some people not getting the full new state pension.

It really depends. I have 40 years and am currently 56. If anything were to happen that meant I was unable to work, i'm still 2 years short of a full state pension. If I also had 3 unaccounted years like OPs DH, then i'd be 5 years short. Technically I have 11 years in which to make up missing years, but if i was suddenly unable to work then I wouldn't be able to and I'd be angry if I'd lost 3 years more than I should have.

So yes, it might not matter at all but also might matter a lot.

I had this. Only a few years but I was sure it wasn't right. Made me so angry. Because it was pre the time you could recoup there as nothing I could do. I queried it and was told no.

Thanks for all the replies. It looks like we should have kept all the P60s, but I have always understood that you only need to keep financial records for seven years, although in fact I have kept some for much longer than that, but not back to the early eighties.

Was he maybe actually not earning enough to trigger NI contributions in those years? The threshold may have gone up to pull him out of paying?

Well the fact that he did pay during 1983-84 indicates that even though his pay was low, it was high enough to trigger NI for that year before the three with missing contributions.

OP was your DH a member of a pension scheme at the same time? Many schemes of that type were contracted out of SERPS and they should still keep a record of the NICs that they notified to HMRC. If he contacts the pension scheme they can check their records and give him a printout of what they hold for his NICs for those years.

Thanks very much for this suggestion. I shall follow this up.

Thank you @travellingfamily for those links. I will have a look.

My P60s don't go that far back but it was one thing I was told to keep every single copy of.

My DH recently wanted to get rid of some of his and I told him not to. Glad I did.

Does the company still exist? Can they help in anyway? What about old colleagues? Have they had all their NI contributions paid?

He needs to complete a BR19. This will tell him if it matters or not. Lots of misinformation on here —as usual—

Fill it in on paper and post it to Newcastle. Download off .gov website

What additional information would you get by filling in a paper BR19 and posting over and above looking at your state pension forecast and NI record on-line?

You can also complete an on-line version of the BR19 and only need to do paper if you want an alternative to the on-line form.

I'm in the same boat - a few years missing for no good reason. I've paid extra on my tax return for the past couple of years to get myself up to the 35 years required, and it's only about £140 per year, so for me has not been a huge problem. I only have one more payment to go and I'm there.

BR19 is a tailored quote and will tell you what’s due, what COPE you have, what you need in years and how much that represents. It isn’t an estimate.

Thanks, so it's more specific? So useful for people who might have a more complex NI history then.

Exactly.

The thing is that full years do qualify people, but whether they are at COPE, Basic, Universal matters. There is an issue with 30 years prior to 2016 not getting captured online, but it’s really fairly simple.