Kibkom North Cyprus Forum

Just had a letter stuck in my gate from HM Revenue & Customs in UK addressed as follows

Erol Ziya
4 {my street} Sk
Lapta
99420
Cyprus

If it's a UK government letter, it will get to you. The South make sure it does. Had one a couple of years ago.

erol wrote: ↑

Tue 28 Jan 2025 2:39 pm

Just had a letter stuck in my gate from HM Revenue & Customs in UK addressed as follows

Erol Ziya
4 {my street} Sk
Lapta
99420
Cyprus

At the rate Rachel Reeves is spending money
they probably need you to pay in

I am actually looking to pay in as there is a 'one off' opportunity to pay voluntary NIC contributions all way back to 2006/7. Normally you can only pay the previous 6 years. This 'offer' ends 05 April 2025.

I recommend that anyone under retirement age with more than 10 complete years NIC contributions in the UK but less than the 35 needed for full state pension look at this option of topping up incomplete years back to 2006 before the offer ends 05 April 2025. Every extra year you complete up to the 35 will increase you state pension by about £6 per week. The cost of completing a full year NIC is £824.20 per year for most years.

All this assumes there will be no major changes to pension system between now and when you retire. My wife is only a 3 years off retirement so reasonably confident that the goal posts will not be moved in her case but I am 9 years or so away and I think the chances of significant changes in that time is much higher so makes the gamble of back paying NIC now riskier.

If you do want to use this one off offer then you should get a shift on, time is running out.

Problem is that you pay the extra years to get a full pension then they don't increase your tax free allowance. Then if you had any add ons for instance bank interest over 1000 stg or a small works pension. You then end up paying tax. Also implications could be that when you are in the UK you cannot claim for much as you have a full pension. No top ups no free bits and bobs. I'm 3 years short and have decided not to pay any more in. . We are all different

susiesusie wrote: ↑

Wed 29 Jan 2025 12:36 pm

I'm 3 years short and have decided not to pay any more in. . We are all different

Indeed all different.

If you are only 3 years short of the 35 you can just wait till you are about to retire and decide then if to top up to the full 35 or not and at what cost. I am on 14 years and my wife 11. if we want to top up more than 6 on retirement then we have to do it by the 5th April deadline.

We did this many years ago while preparing for retirement, which eventually happened 8 years ago.
The calculation was fairly simple - how much would it cost to (a) pay voluntary contributions for the remainder of the time until I would be 65 (since we were then living out of the U.K. and had been for some time) (b) plus the cost of making up the “gap” as Erol outlined in the original post (no concession in those days!).
Then: how much extra pension per week/month/year would that give me.
Divide cost by benefit = how many years would I need to survive after starting to draw the U.K. OAP.
If that seemed “doable” then it was worth it.
(All based on the figures at the time - not allowing for any changes such as mentioned by susiesusie but in my case the time frame was similar to Erol’s and the pensions would be “protected” by the so-called triple lock.)
For me it was worth it and so we went ahead and are currently enjoying the benefits. Since we live outside the U.K. a lot of the negatives in susiesusie’s post wouldn’t apply to us (means-tested benefits, for example).
For my wife it wasn’t worth it - she’d have had to live to Methuselah’s age to benefit!
One big downer: I hadn’t allowed for the change to the “new” pension scheme and so fell short of the 35 year requirement, having based the calculations on the then 30 years rule.

I am 8 years short, despite being told to stop voluntary payments when I got to 32 years as, at that time, 30 years was the qualifying period. I was also contracted out during employment so was under the impression that I couldn't get the full pension. However, after contacting the overseas pensions team last year I found out I can get near enough the full amount by paying 8 years of contributions. I plan to pay 3 years before April and then the rest over the next 2 years.

I also read that, my husband, who is already in receipt of his pension could top up too. He made a payment in October, received arrears in December and is now receiving an extra £100 a month. By our calculations, he will have covered the outlay in less than 2 years. He did have over 35 years contributions but stopped paying NI contributions around 2007, on the advice of the NI department.

If you know you are going to spend your retirement outside the UK but in a country that still gives you the annual increase then the 'numbers' are pretty compelling to fill in as many gaps to the 35 max as you can. However if you plan to spend your retirement or some of it in a country like say New Zealand, then from the point you move there you will no longer get any annual increases. This makes the decision harder and quite possibly you would be better off putting the money in an interest bearing account rather than towards buying back previous years NIC. Then again all 'investing' is some degree of gamble or other.

And also a crystal ball would be the cherry on the cake.
Looking at private pensions, state pension in 9 years 8 months all stress with who knows best advice.
Back to the original post, yes amazing what post does arrive.

Will it really be worth it ……already plans afoot to increase pension age to 70 . Obviously it’s all personal choice . Will there be a pension at all!