YP Letters: My wasted National Insurance contributions

From: Alan Chapman, Bingley.
Do pensioners receive sufficient benefits?Do pensioners receive sufficient benefits?
Do pensioners receive sufficient benefits?

THE letter of my pal of several years, Barry Foster from Whitby, ‘No need for guilt on NHS’ (The Yorkshire Post, March 23), draws me to offer good reasons not to feel any concerns for using the NHS in our latter years.

In my case, I spent most of my working life self-employed (SE) paying class 2 NI contributions as all SEs do, then forced to pay extra class 4 to the maximum amount permissible over many consecutive years, totalling in excess of £11,000 additional funds in, before early retirement.

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What do I get for my Class 4 contributions in pension income? Exactly nothing! Wasted funds that could alternatively gone into my very necessary private pension plan. I would be substantially better off today, especially including the missed annual fund growth.

Additionally my wife died suddenly of hereditary heart disease in 1998, age 53. She paid 35 years class 1 NI contributions, under government rules at that time, nothing was credited to her estate and no posthumous pension paid, so I get no benefit from her years of effort. I was the sole beneficiary of her estate. The state kept the lot. She will be pleased her funds were not completely wasted, taking comfort the fact that immigrants to our country, who had not paid a penny into the system, would be drawing various benefits using her money.

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