Help with NI contributions please

[JH22]

Hi,

 

I'll try to keep this short. Any help would be appreciated.

My husband was self employed (sub contracting) in 2008 for a few months. The contract was finished in Dec 08 and he tried to claim for job seekers alllowance. He was refused as they said he had been paying the wrong type of NI contributions (class 2 instead of class1) he wasn't told anything about different classes and was just sent invoices which he paid. We didnt do anything about it as we thought it was our fault but for 4 months he was out of work and not entitled to anything. Anyway, he started work in april 2009 and has been employed ever since.

He then got laid off about 3 weeks ago and tried to claim jobseekers again. He has been refused again due to these same NI contributions. We are now annoyed. Why did no one tell him about the different types of contributions (first time self employed) and why are they still stopping him from claiming. He has paid solidly for over a year plus when he was out of work last time he signed on every week at the job centre so they would pay his NI for him.

Am hoping someone can shed some light on this and can we do something about it??

Thanks

[ErikaPNP]

For contribution based JSA the person claiming has to have paid sufficient class 1 contributions in the two qualifying years. The two qualifying years are currently 2007/2008 and 2008/2009. As he was self employed for a proportion of the qualifying years this would explain why his contributions record is insufficient for claiming JSA©.

 

If your total household income is below £100.95 per week and you have savings of £6000.00 or less (or savings of £6000.00 to £16000.00) he may be eligible for Income Based JSA.

[privatehudson]

It sounds like he has claimed Contribution based Jobseekers Allowance. That is rated on what Class 1 NI contributions he has paid over 2 previous tax years. Currently they'll be looking at the years April 2007 to April 2008 and April 2008 to April 2009. Because of this the year he has just worked doesn't count yet. Class 2 contributions do not count towards Jobseekers Allowance, and as far as I know neither does the contributions he was credited with whilst claiming JSA (they do however count towards things like pension so are not totally worthless)

 

There is another type of Jobseekers Allowance known as Income Based. He may be able to apply for this and it will look at the income of the household. Generally speaking if you have savings of more than £16,000, or if you (as his partner assuming you live together) work more than 24 hours a week he will not qualify for Income Based.

 

As to why he wasn't told about the different types of contributions I honestly don't know and I guess it would depend on how he got the job. The information is generally available in leaflet form and on various government websites however.

 

Edit:

 

You know what, I think Erika has some sort of knack for replying just before me!

Edited April 14, 2010 by privatehudson

[insyder]

as far as I know neither does the contributions he was credited with whilst claiming JSA

 

That's correct