Are you planning to claim your UK state pension?  Do you know what UK state pension you will be entitled to receive?

If individuals have not contributed enough prior to reaching state pension age, they may not be able to claim state pension, or receive the full state pension amount. To protect state pension and other benefits it may be beneficial for people to make voluntary NI contributions to top up their contribution history, potentially increasing the amount of state pension they will receive.

You can get a state pension forecast through your personal tax account and you can also see what gaps you have in your NI record.   But the rules are about to change…. at the moment individuals can fill gaps in their NIC history from 6 April 2006 to the present date by making voluntary contributions.

However, from 6 April 2023, it will no longer be possible to go back to April 2006 – instead it will only be possible to go back six years.   So in the 2023/24 tax year, it will be possible to make contributions going back to the 2017/18 tax year only.

It is therefore important for anyone who thinks they may have gaps in their national insurance records to ACT NOW and check their NI record before 5 April 2023.