davidBLancs

With an impending New State Pension age of 5.3.24 (age 66) this is right near the end of the current financial year (2023/24) in which no employment NI will be made. There was a shortfall in projected State Pension due to earlier contracting out, the shortfall is now much reduced by buying blank NI years via Class 3 Voluntary NI contributions since April 2016 for the years 2016/17 to 2022/23. However there seems to be a lack of definitive advice on whether 2023/24 could be bought as another Class 3 Voluntary year. One source (not an HMRC one) says “The tax year in which you reach State Pension age can’t be used as a qualifying year for your State Pension”. If correct I cannot see anything explaining this properly in the relevant HMRC website areas. Also if so, does this rule out making any attempt to buy back 2023/24 as an NI year and therefore the remaining shortfall is impossible to reduce? Please advise asap

Thanks for your comment Nosakhare Olotu, which further outlines the confusion over the correct payee for NI payments. As I mentioned there are conflicting answers on this community forum including from HMRC. For example, in thread https://community.hmrc.gov.uk/customerforums/ni/c7924282-3a61-ee11-a81c-6045bd0c7b9d of a few months ago, Advisor HMRC Admin 20 states that you should use HMRC NICO and points to a page on the Gov.uk website, which leads you to a section on online/telephone bank payments. This says use HMRC NI RECEIPTS! We are constantly told/threatened by the banking industry and other organisations to make sure that during online banking payments all details match up with the expected payee in order to avoid mis-payments and costly mistakes being made. Yet here we are! I am really expecting here that an HMRC forum advisor will provide a definitive answer/explanation to myself and others on this forum thread

Hi, I have recently spoken to an HMRC advisor and obtained an 18 digit code as a reference to pay Voluntary Class 3 NI for 2022/23 (£824.20). I was given the HMRC sort code and account number to pay (08 32 20/12001004). I was also quoted a payee to use as HMRC NI RECEIPTS. I queried this, as last year I paid and used a payee I was given of HMRC NICO. The HMRC advisor was definite that it was now HMRC NI RECEIPTS. However my bank First Direct only has a preset pay instruction of HMRC NICO for the sort code/account number combination (08 32 20/12001004). With First Direct you cannot create your own payment instruction for what they term ‘large organisations’. They are adamant that this payee is correct and cant change it. Will it be picked up and allocated OK if I send my payment to payee HMRC NICO? The Gov.uk website area states the payee should be HMRC NIC RECEIPTS. There seems to be some sort of stand-off over this between HMRC and First Direct/HSBC, or something has not been updated properly. There are similar questions about this in other posts on the HMRC Community Forum with conflicting answers.