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National Insurance contributions and your State Pension until 2015/16

Last autumn, I published a number of blog entries to help explain how the old system worked. Through this entry, which focusses on the period up to 5 April 2016, I want to show how people may have paid different amounts of NI over their working life through to the end of the tax year 2015/16, and how this has contributed to the State Pension they are or will become entitled to.

On the 12th day of Christmas … a partridge and a Workie

2015 has been an exciting year for UK pensions with more workers in small and micro firms being enrolled in a workplace pension. And 2016 looks set to be even busier.

Understanding the State Pension part six: what happens when the New State Pension starts in 2016

As we have seen, the outgoing State Pension system is a very complicated beast. In April 2016, we will be replacing this with a new clearer system.

Understanding the State Pension part four a: How contracting-out can affect your total State Pension

Blog 4 showed how the past changes to the Additional State Pension mean that you could have built up several different parts of State Pension. Your Additional State Pension will depend on a large number of factors.

Understanding the State Pension part three: am I ‘contracted out’ and what does it mean?

Being “contracted-out” generally means that you are paying lower National Insurance rates than the standard full rate for employees. You will be paying lower National Insurance as you are opted out of State Second Pension (S2P).