Rosie

Just an observation from the posts that keep appearing of guys leaving HMF around 7 years on the quest of CP based riches and adventures. When I left it was also on overseas work and I paid little attention to pensions, benefits and alike, why bother, we are all destined to make a mint and die young on a tax free overseas contract anyway right! I did not even consider things like national insurance and the fact that this has a direct influence on state pension, disability allowance, job seeker allowance and so forth. Fact is that if things do go tits up, quite a few of us are going to be in need of at least one of these at some point (obvioously the pension is not something to place great faith in .

I basically played catch up on missed contributions but also found out that when the Pensions Act became law in July 2007 it made a few changes to the system (such as only requiring 30 years contributions for full state cover etc). I very much doubt that these are the type of things that most guys think of one the outbound flight to and overseas gig.

Unless certain that everything is covered it might be worth getting in touch with them to see options and consequences. I did and can report that I had a telephone converstaion with a real person and had a letter that was not typed in an outsourced sweathshop in Dehli. Conact details for the people dealing with overseas voluntary contributions at HM Revenue & Customs are:


Centre for Non-Residents
Benton Park View
Newcastle Upon Tyne
NE98 1ZZ

Tel: 0191 2254869
HM Revenue & Customs: Home Page

... may well be known by the experienced masses but if at least one person is enlightened it was worth the typing


Just a thought...

Stay safe all