For the last couple of weeks I’ve had a bee in my bonnet about not having paid enough National Insurance contributions during my working life in order to receive the full state pension when I become eligible, which will be in 2032. Sheesh, why am I fretting about something that is over ten years away? Anyhoo, I don’t know why I’ve been thinking about this, and it is only a small bee, but it has been a bee nonetheless and I needed to do something about it.
Now, in order to ascertain my current National Insurance contributions, I needed to access (dramatic drum roll accompanied by deep booming voice)… ‘The Government Gateway’… (bom, bom, BOM!). Easy do, I thought. I registered for it when I was self-employed.
In I went. Message pops up. ‘We’ve deleted that account because it hasn’t been accessed for at least three years.’ Well, no, because quite frankly I have better things to do with my time than lurk around in a Gateway belonging to The Government.
Would I like to reset my account? Oh well, yes - if I must. I need to silence this bee.
And thus began my tedious and frustrating journey into the Seven Circles of Hell…
I set up a new password. ‘We need to send you an access code,’ said The Gov. Good luck with that, thought I, given the mobile phone signal coverage around here is akin to the service one would receive using a telephone made from two tin cans and a piece of string.
Luckily, they were able to send the code via our landline. I entered the code.
‘We need to verify you are who you say you are,’ said The Gov. ‘We shall ask you security questions.’
And they did. Name, date of birth, National Insurance number, address, previous address, colour of my underpants…okay, NOT the colour of my underpants, but the intrusion felt like it. So far, so good.
‘We’ve added another layer of security,’ said the Gov. ‘We need to ask you more questions to confirm you are who you say you are. Please choose two from the following options.’
The four options were: my passport, my latest P60, the year I last took out a personal loan/ mobile phone contract/ credit card and, bizarrely, my Northern Ireland driver’s licence. What?? What’s wrong with my English driving licence, the licence I’ve had for the last 39 years???
Well, I don’t have a passport or a Northern Ireland driving licence (who knew, eh?) so my options weren’t really options. Flipping heck - my P60 was digital and needed printing off from a payroll account I couldn’t even remember the name of, and I had NO idea when I got my current mobile phone OR when I last took out a loan/ credit card because I prefer to save up and buy things rather than borrow money. Well, I had a rough idea of these things, but would a rough idea be enough?
I gave up. Who cares if I’ve paid enough contributions for a full pension anyway. I might be dead by 2032.
But here’s the thing. I didn’t want to give up. I had the huge urge to persevere with this mission and get the information I needed which, after all, was MY information.
So, I went into my bank account and scrolled back through the years to find relevant information there. And then I went into my mobile phone account to see when I started that.
‘We need to send you a verification code to allow you to log in,’ said Mobile Phone Company. Eurgh….
I find the payroll company my workplace uses and manage to get into my account. I print off my latest P60. The printer tells me the ink is low. This is the least of my concerns.
I’m feeling rather testy at this point, and my heart is starting to pound.
With relevant information recorded carefully in luminous green ink on a scrap of paper, I enter once more ‘The Government Gateway.’
‘We need to send you an access code,’ said The Gov.
Aaaarghhhhhhh…
I went through the same rigamarole on my first attempt - dates, names, numbers, underpants.
I reached the Additional Level of Security. The questions came firing in. For chuff’s sake, I felt like I was sitting an exam. My heart was banging double time. What if I get something wrong? What if I mistype a number? What if my identity security is not deemed secure enough and the Feds arrive in a helicopter with blacked out windows, break down the front door and drag me, kicking and screaming (because I would kick and scream) away to some inescapable penitentiary in a remote desert somewhere? God, the tension!!! The feelings of actual physical sickness, and all to prove I am who I say I am.
But hurrah! I received a notification that I had passed ALL the security questions, I WAS who I said I was, and they were now able to tell me about my National Insurance Pension Contributions!
I have paid enough. I shall receive the full allowance. There was no need for a top up, which is what I was thinking I would have to make. After all that kerfuffle, no action was needed - unless the Gov goes loco tonto again in the next decade which is not unlikely. But at least the bee has been silenced and is resting quietly inside my bonnet waiting for the next thing it can get all paranoid about.
Well! Now I had been accepted into the Government Inner Sanctum, I wasn’t going to let the opportunity go to waste. I went into the Married Person’s Tax Allowance section and transferred some of my unused tax allowance to Andy which will be worth £21 a month which means we can continue to eat butter rather than downgrade to some awful faux butter alternative which I’ve been considering since grocery prices started to rocket. And then I was asked if I’d like to claim for up to four previous years. Yes, I would, thank you very much!
Actually, under the earnings limits I could claim for only one previous year, but still - we shall receive a not too shoddy tax rebate in the post. Which will cover the posh deckchair and posh gardening tools I’ve had my eye on. And a couple of books. And more butter.
All in all then, and despite the trauma, a good hour of work worth over £500! I just need to remember to log into the account once more in the next three years in order to prevent the cheeky sods deleting it again and causing me another bout of trauma when I am 60 and therefore even more dithery than I am now. And live for at least another eleven years so I can claim my state pension.
It is also reassuring to know that I am who I am.
And now I’m going to sit in a dark cave and eat nuts and berries and remember the good old days when you could sort all this stuff out by chatting to someone called Mrs Brown at your local tax office….sigh….
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KJ