ClickityClic
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could it be that you do not have the required minimum paid contributions at FULL rate PRSI, other than the class S? See this (I.ve bolded the relevant words):
"Number of paid contributions
If you reached pension age before April 6 2002, you must have 156 qualifying paid contributions (a total of 3 years but they do not have to be consecutive). This means that you must have actually paid full-rate contributions (that is, full stamp prior to 1979 and Class A,E,F,G,H,N and S since then.)
If you reach pension age on or after 6th April 2002, you will need to have 260 paid contributions (effectively 5 years contributions but they need not be consecutive). However, if you were a voluntary contributor on or before April 6 1997, you need only have 156 paid contributions if you have a yearly average of at least 20 contributions.
If you reach pension age on or after April 6 2012, you will need to have 520 paid contributions (10 years paid contributions). In this case, not more than 260 of the 520 contributions may be voluntary contributions. However, if you were a voluntary contributor on or before April 6 1997 and you have a yearly average of 10 contributions, you may meet the requirement if you have a total of 520 contributions, but only 156 need to be compulsory paid contributions."
Thank you all for your contributions. I've been in touch with the accountant and I was indeed down for the absolutely minimum wage, where I had no PRSI liability. However, PRSI was paid on my behalf, and when I made an application for the pension, I was told that I may be considered for a refund! After much to-ing and fro-ing, they refunded me "the contributions paid in error". Does this now mean that I'm not entitled to a pension?
Could someone answer the following ? (Note : I have 8.5 years PAYE stamps and 5 years S class)
1. I'm self-employed but haven't worked in 8 months. I've been paying myself a salary from the money in the company since but as I'm nearly down to about 5K in the account, I'm going to stop paying myself from the company and switch to living off what savings I have, so that I can at least continue to pay whatever bills come into the company.
So will that make me unemployed ?
2. As my wife is still working and earning a decent wage, and because I've been paying Class S stamps over the last 5 years, I expect I will get nothing, monetarily, from the JB/JA.
Is there a point me signing on ? IIRC, a PAYEr can at least get their stamps paid by signing on even they don't qualify after a means test. Would I get my S class stamps paid ?
3. When I set up my company initially, could I have opted to pay the full stamp and thus have made a difference if unemployed ? Perhaps I can switch when I next (please god, soon) work ?
Was in similar situation myself, self employed with ltd. company.
They will means test you for job seekers and take your wifes earnings into account and any savings you have, so you might not get much, if anything.
You would have to make voluntary social ins. payments your self.
You can only pay class A stamp if you are not majority shareholder in the company, i.e. if someone else controls the company, in effect you are an employee. You can set it up this way, by making someone else in control.
The scope section of social welfare deal with this and may take some time. I thought I might be better off on class A, but as class A is a higher payment they also backdate it, so ecided to stick with class S. just make sure all your class S contributions are fully up to date. (Class S you still get full contributory pension.) 2 years of paying class A would qualify you for dole. Its a minefield.
Also when assesing you for job seekers, they only take into account 2 years of your contributions, know someone unemployed, worked since he was 14, but didn't take that into consideration, since he was self employed for last 5 years paying class s. Its a minefield
Why would I make this up? It is a minefield if you claim the above is untrue.
O.k. thanks, is it a recent thing that they only take 1 years contributions into consideration for social welfare purposes. I would have thought they would take an accumulated amount over a lifetime, seems unfair?
Thanks for your help. It sounds like there isn't much point in signing on. Today is my last day of paying myself wage from the company funds, so will have to start hitting my savings as of next week.
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