Poll for people paying employment taxes in the UK only

[philmophlegm]

Poll National Insurance contributions poll

Comments

[wellinghall]

I think my paternal grandfather might have referred to it as a stamp. I don't remember anyone else doing so in real life.

ETA: Why do you ask?

[philmophlegm]

Two reasons. One was I was trying to roughly work out whether (as someone now earning at or below the NI threshold) it was worth me paying voluntary NI contributions rather than putting £13.25 per week into some form of retirement saving (personal pension or ISA or whatever

[king_pellinor]

I was looking at this for a client recently. It's £660 or so to get about £150 of pension per annum, which is a good deal.

However, you only need 30 years of contributions to get full state pension and anything after that is wasted makes no difference. You probably have about 20 now, and nearly 30 years to get the remaining 10 or so. If you voluntarily pay now, and then pay employment or self-employment contributions in more years than you need, the voluntary ones would be better off in a private pension.

You can probably ignore voluntary contributions for the next 15 years or so at the very least.

[philmophlegm]

Yeah, that was pretty much where I was heading. I think I have 19 years now. Of course that brings another assumption into play - that the requirement stays at 30 years, but I think I'll take those odds.

[lil_shepherd]

I'm not going to fill in the poll, because I'm retired, but we always referred to 'National Insurance' or NI. (That I was working first for HM Customs and Excise and latterly for HMRC might have something to do with this...)

[ozisim]

I call it the "The NI Ripoff Tax".

Immigration place a restriction on my visa saying that I am not eligible for public funds. - this includes statutory sick leave and probably maternity pay (I say probably, because it's so new, no one has challenged it yet)
The thing is... The tax office doesn't recognise my right (forced or not) to exist outside the NI system, so they tax me anyways.

[philmophlegm]

That's interesting (and I must admit, something I didn't know). People of my mother's generation, who were indoctrinated to believe that the State will provide just so long as you pay your 'Stamp' often seem to think that NI contributions are some form of insurance scheme and not just an income tax under a different name. Clearly for you that is most definitely not the case.

[ozisim]

*nods

[philmophlegm]

Bloody immigrants, coming over here, PAYING their taxes...

[king_pellinor]

I call it a stamp, but mostly when paid at the minimum level to count as a year's worth of contributions, such as a director taking about £7,500 of salary. For the most part I call the amounts NI contributions, NI, or NICs.

[philmophlegm]

This will no doubt please my mum ("king_pellinor uses the word "stamp", and he's a CTA...") and denies me the opportunity to tease her for being old-fashioned.

[louisedennis]

Though, to be honest, I suspect I actually refer to them (rather than skimming my pay slip and thinking "looks much like last month, is probably OK") less than once a year so I couldn't speak with certainty about exactly what I would say.