Talk:National Insurance

I thought national insurance was introduced much earlier, around the 1910s? Joolz 08:43, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

When was the National Insurance Number first issued? --jmb 08:26, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Here's some more raw material, that I'm not confident enough to put on the main page, it's just from my own personal research. Also perhaps should be in the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Earnings-Related_Pension_Scheme page.

Basic State Pension

Currently you need to pay enough contributions to qualify for 44 years to get the full basic state pension. This is currently, Aug 2005, just over £82 per week. If you qualify for fewer years, you get proportionately less money. So if you qualified for just 11 years, you'll get 1/4 of the full amount per week. Less than 11 years, you get nothing. Everyone gets 5 years credit for free, so in practice you only need to qualify for 39 years.

You can qualify in a year by paying enough Class 1 or Class 2 contributions. (What are exact rules for this?) If you didn't pay enough due to not working or being out the country, then you can pay voluntary contributions to make yourself qualify for that year.

Proposals introduced through a White Paper in 2006 indicate that the number of qualifying years needed for a full pension will reduce to 30 years contributions for both men and women. The retirement age will be increased to 68 but it will be phased in.

id

"Consequently, NI numbers are sometimes used for identification purposes in other contexts which have nothing to do with their original National Insurance purpose. This is despite a clear claim on the back of the NI card, and a smaller claim on the front, that it is not proof of identity."

you need a NI number to set up a bank account —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.16.160.17 (talk) 22:41, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

State Second Pension

S2P (State second pension) is an additional income-related pension above the basic state pension. If you are an employee (paying Class 1 contributions), then some of your NI contributions automatically go into this. You are allowed to "contract out" of the S2P. This means the money is still collected by the Inland Revenue, but they pay it into your own special private pension for this purpose. If you are self-employed (paying Class 2 contributions) then you are not contributing towards an S2P. If a self-employed person is registered to contract out, then their contracted-out private pension will receive no contributions for the period while they are self-employed.

(? There are also occupational pensions here which do this differently, but I know nothing about them).

80.177.16.113 15:37, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

I see this page as an overview on the NI system - not a detailed guide - for which uses would be best consulting any of the leaflets issued by the HMRC or by talking to their staff. Many a false peice of advice has come from misleading information.

RichardLowther 20:54, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

NIRS2

I would argue that NIRS2 isn't a Windows based system. Although desk top accessible, it works by 'tabbing' across data with little mouse use and no graphical interfaces to assist in simple tasks. I am open to corrections. RichardLowther 20:54, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

In any case is this section really necessary? Do we really need a detailed section here about the internal computer system used by HMCE to administer the system? It seems that it has been off the press radar for several years; the problems with it were some time ago now. I'm minded to cut this section down to a couple of concise sentences.BaseTurnComplete 14:44, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

The following material doesn't seem to meet current wikipedia standards, so I cut it from the article and moved it here for discussion:

There have been various accusations and a great deal of evidence emerging of the data errors which have occurred during the implementation of this system. Some contribution data was lost completely it seems although neither the government, DWP or HMRC have been prepared to admit openly to this or the scale of the data loss. There is a great deal of evidence now that some contributors, including those who have already retired, have lost contributions in their records of both basic NI and SERPS. This is proven by the fact that the government and HMRC have latterly admitted that they have millions of pounds of both NI contributions and SERPS contributions held in the accounting system, but not allocated to any contributor. The government has thus obtained this money fraudulently, and has no intention now to determine the rightful contributors, who have lost part of the pension which they paid the contributions for.

--91.84.119.55 (talk) 17:18, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Allocation of NI numbers

How does HMRC know about you when you're approaching your 16th birthday in order to issue you with an NI numbercard? 13:13, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

They are notified by the Child Benefit computers - HMRC's computer has links to NIRS, which notifies them. Persons for whom no Child Benefit claim was ever made (for example, children educated abroad or whose parents did not make a claim for moral reasons) will not be issued a card automatically and must make an application. --Lexin 10:46, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

What is the purpose of the NI number???

It's a personal identification number so that claims to benefit and payments of national insurance can be tracked and any under or over payments dealt with. --Lexin 10:46, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

National Insurance Fund

Contrary to what the main article says, the National Insurance Fund is not absorbed into general revenue. The NIF has a distinct existence.

Here is an extract from a recent exchange with the National Audit Office.

Q. Would you please confirm that the NIF exists as a fund quite distinct from ‘other public money’, that is, the Consolidated Fund.

A. Both the National Insurance Fund and the Consolidated Fund are distinct legal entities. Separate accounts are prepared for both Funds and presented to Parliament. All surplus funds are retained in the National Insurance Fund.

The following information was received by the author from the Commissioners for Reduction of the National debt.

The Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt (CRND) are responsible for both the National Insurance Fund of Great Britain and the Northern Ireland National Insurance Fund.

Following a review by HM Revenue and Customs, HM Treasury and CRND, a change to the investment strategy of both National Insurance Funds was approved in December 2006. The change, which is expected to lead to lower administration costs, was actioned in January 2007 when all the gilt holdings of both Funds were sold and the proceeds placed into Call Notice Deposits with the Debt Management Account Deposit Facility (DMADF)*. In future both Funds are expected to earn a rate of interest closely related to the Bank of England Official Rate.

At 31st March 2007 the respective balances held were: GB NIF - £38,815.6 million NI NIF - £1,085.2 million

• The DMADF is a deposit taking facility operated by the UK Debt Management Office - see attached operational notice.

All of the NIF's cash in held in CNDs and is therefore available on demand. The value of the NIF varies during each month as there is a cycle of deposits and withdrawals by HM Revenue and Customs. At the end of last month the NIFs value was £44.8 billion.

The NIF's CND deposits in the DMADF are clearly identified as belonging to the NIF and the appropriate principal and interest is payable only to the NIF. The NIF’s investments are held in the name of the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt (CRND).

---

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.40.194.58 (talk) 01:57, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Contributions are not "taxes" because they are not available for general expenditure by the government. The income of the NIF consists of contributions from employees, employers, and the self-employed PLUS interest on its investments.

Each year there is a surplus of the order of 2 billion pounds. The accrued surplus is currently more than 30 billion pounds. The surplus is lent to the government by way of investment in gilt-edged securities, and interest on these investments is paid to the NIF as it falls due.

By the current government’s “golden rule” borrowed money (which includes the NIF surplus) cannot be used to finance current expenditure. It can only be used for investment, mainly capital investment in infrastructure. The money in the NIF can only be used for payment of benefits and administration expenses.

See http://www.britishpensions.org.au/national_insurance_fund.htm for full explanation and link to the document with the full Q&A session with NAO.

Rainbowfarmau 00:39, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

The evidence provided is compelling, and I'm about to change the main article. However this should be set against the fact that the 1% NIC above the UEL was much-trumpeted by Brown as chancellor as being to fund improvements in the NHS.BaseTurnComplete (talk) 00:14, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Detailed description

Just read this article and as a non-UK resident the article does not explain exactly what services the National Insurance actually offers? Nighty5 (talk) 13:38, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

As a UK resident, I'm not so sure we know either! As I understand it, it was originally supposed to go towards the National Health Service, which provides health care "Free at the point of need" to all UK residents, and also, originally "the dole" or unemployment payments, but is now generally taken to be used as part of the general taxation regime. Regards, Lynbarn (talk) 18:47, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Lynbarn for your reply, I did take a look at some of the social services NI provides on the official websites however I started looking for my own needs - possibly moving to the UK in the next few months. I think some of the services were mentioned in the Michael Moore film - Sicko. I guess some bullet points should be added that detail some of services such as medical assistance and unemployment payments/benefits. Nighty5 (talk) 05:08, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

In theory a least, NI doesn't pay for the NHS, despite how the current government have sold their NI increases*. It mainly pays for a state pension plus a few other benefits if for various reasons you are unable to work. If you don't need to draw on the benefits that protect you from being unable to work, the main effect that you will see by moving to the UK and paying it, is that after contributing to the system for a number of years you will be eligible for a state pension once you reach the state pension age (currently 65 but increasing in future years). The size of the pension you can draw depends on how many years' contributions you make.

• I say this because the current government sold an NI increase a few years ago as paying for NHS improvements. No wonder NI is considered to be nothing but an income tax these days.BaseTurnComplete (talk) 22:46, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

regexp?

To validate a NINO the following regular expression can be used

"^[A-CEGHJ-PR-TW-Z][A-CEGHJ-NPR-TW-Z] ?\d{2} ?\d{2} ?\d{2} ?[ABCDFM]"

In what language is that? It certainly won't work in perl. What's with the quantifiers ahead of the classes? And when the article says 'the suffix letter is A, B, C, D or absent', what's the ?[ABCDFM] part? -- Tarquin (talk) 12:54, 20 April 2008 (UTC)