It’s the start of Talk Money Week, an annual financial awareness campaign run by the Money and Pensions Service which encourages us to start open and honest conversations about money.
This year’s theme is to Do One Thing to improve your financial wellbeing and to inspire others to do the same.
HMRC App – Do One Thing
HMRC are getting behind Talk Money Week by encouraging taxpayers to Do One Thing and get on the HMRC app to help make managing their money and tax easier.
The app enables users to do things like:
- Make Child Benefit claims
- Find their National Insurance number
- Check their tax code
- Use a tax calculator to estimate their take-home pay after deductions
- Check their employment history over the last 5 years
- Check their National Insurance record
- View their State Pension forecast
- Make payments for Self Assessment and Simple Assessment
- Claim tax rebates if you have overpaid tax
State Pension
To get the full new State Pension of £221.20 a week, you usually need at least 35 years of qualifying National Insurance. You gain qualifying years from working and paying National Insurance, making voluntary payments, or by claiming certain benefits.
You have until the new tax year in April to check and pay for any missing National Insurance contributions going back to 2006. Paying for these may add more to your pension than what you actually spend filling in these missing years.
“Boosting your state pension by back-claiming or buying missing National Insurance years is one of the single most lucrative things you can do. Many people have been in touch to say they’re likely to gain £10,000s from it.” – Martin Lewis, founder of MoneySavingExpert.com
After 5th April 2025 you will only be able to make National Insurance contributions for the previous six tax years.
You can use the HMRC app to check your National Insurance record and buy back previous missing National Insurance years ahead of the April deadline.
HMRC states that 51% of customers using the online service topped up one year of their National Insurance record, with the largest weekly State Pension increase being £107.44.
However, this online tool cannot be used by everyone, so some will have to ring up to check and buy National Insurance years. Those excluded from the online tool are people who:
- Are already over the State Pension age
- Are women holding a valid Married Women’s Reduced Rate Election certificate
- Have been self-employed for any of the years they are trying to pay for
- Were living abroad for any of the years they are trying to pay for
- Whose National Insurance record is currently being updated
- Are eligible to pay for Home Responsibilities Protection