December 20, 2022
Article
In order to qualify for a full state pension, the current rules require you to have paid national insurance contributions for at least 35 years. For some people this isn’t an issue, but for others, if you have had periods when you weren’t working or perhaps spent some time abroad, your record can fall short of the required 35 years.
To check this, you need to access your personal tax accounts. This is a system set up by HMRC which helps you to manage your tax affairs. More details on personal tax accounts can be found here:
Personal tax account: sign in or set up - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Up until April 2023, you can go back to 2006 and buy missing years. After this date, you will only be able to go back six years.
If you are over 45 and haven’t taken your state pension yet and have missing years from 2006 to 2017, it’s worth considering making voluntary contributions to make up these gaps. This will depend on your age, number of missing years and future work plans, but this will be your last chance to go back and fill in the gaps for these years.
If you think you may be affected and would like to discuss this further, please contact me or your usual Albert Goodman contact.