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UK sate pensions and French social charges.


Cathar Tours
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I have just learnt in another thread that my father could have claimed payments made in the French system to top up his UK state pension.

He was a couple of years short of the 35 years required for a full UK state pension. He was told by the DWP that he could top it up by buying extra stamps and at that time there was a "special" stamp available which would cease to exist a few months later. Basically the stamp was just for the state pension and cost somewhere round about £4 per week or just over. It was a very good deal so that's what he did.

Now he has been paying social charges through the Tresor Public tax system. He has never paid into any separate social fund. Does this mean he is entitled to any form of French state pension? If it does how does he go about claiming it?

Unfortunately according to the DWP website and what he was told at the time having more than 35 weeks makes no difference to his state pension so claiming those years he has paid social charges in France would be pointless because it would not change his UK state pension amount. He is of course a current S1 holder and is still paying these social payments and yes I know he can claim them back but before he does it would be good to know the answer to the pension question.
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If by social charges you mean CGS and whatever the other one is called, I think the answer is No. In effect these are simply a tax which is used to fund the healthcare system, but you don't actually get anything back. Specifically, they're charged on income that's for one reason or another bypassed having French social security contributions levied on it - typically income earned abroad or unearned income. Whereas pension contributions paid by workers in France are collected based on their French earned income and passed to their retirement "caisse", and there is a different "caisse" for each profession. If your dad was never classed as a worker in France he won't ever have been allocated to a retirement caisse nor made any pension contributions.
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Firstly, if your father (YF) topped up the "couple of years" with voluntary payments (VP's), as you seem to be saying, he is entitled to a full UK pension.

However, reading between the lines, from your comment that this possibility "would cease to exist a few months later", I gather that it ceased when he reached 65, as this is the limit for such payments, and he didn't make the required total for a full pension.

I had a similar problem. I could only make back payments for 5 years, and annual payments for a couple of years, up to age 65.

How many years did your YF work in France, and pay taxes and the concurrent social charges for unemployment, health benefits, pension etc?

Those are the only payments which count towards a pension, not those charged annually with income tax.

If he had made payments into another country's system, this would not make any difference to the UK pension he gets. Those years are only taken into account if someone does not have the minimum number to qualify for a pension. If you read the link I sent, you will see that the years worked in each country are added together, and the total theoretical pension (PT) is calculated for the total years.

Each country then pays the GREATER of (a) Their portion IN PROPORTION to the years worked there. OR (b) The pension calculated ONLY from the years worked there.

If YF had 34 years in UK and 8 in France, a total of 42 years, he could get only 34/42 of PT under the proportional calculation, and 34/35 of PT if the French payments are ignored, so the latter is what he gets.

If he is covered by an S1 he should not pay Contributions Sociales on his UK pension, - provided he does not have a pension from France.

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The answer is no. One has to pay into the french pension system, both public and private, and both are linked,  get one gets you both. Complicated[8-)]

I also believe that there is a minimum one has to have paid into the french system, at least 60 trimestres.

Where did you read this?????

Also he has a full UK pension and depending on what that is, it could well be more than the minimum retraite income in France. The problem ofcourse, is the exchange rate,  but he knew that that was variable when he moved to France. We all do when we move and have income from another country with a different currency, ie  this applies to us.

You have to remember that there are many french people living  on very very small pensions.

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"I also believe that there is a minimum one has to have paid into the french system, at least 60 trimestres."

For a full pension there is a minimum number of trimetres, which depends on your year of birth, but if you've paid in less then you simply get a smaller pension.

A few years back when I'd been contributing here for about 3 years my pension forecast in France was a massive 450€ a year ;-) I haven't managed to get a forecast since then, don't ask.

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Linda1000 wrote:

Where you claim your pension from depends on which country you last worked in.. If you last worked in France, you have to claim it in France.

In CT's father's case I agree, but for the benefit of others who may not be in the same position, this is not always the case.

If you retire to the country where you last worked, then that country is responsible for the pension and will claim on your behalf from other states as necessary.

If you retire to a country where you have not worked and made contributions, the competent state is the one where you have made the most contributions as measured in time (rather than value).
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[quote user="andyh4"] ....................... If you retire to the country where you last worked, then that country is

responsible for the pension and will claim on your behalf from other

states as necessary.

If you retire to a country where you have not worked and made contributions, the competent state is the one where you have made the most contributions as measured in time (rather than value).[/quote]

Brilliant thinking on the part of those who came up with that rule.

It works really well until you reach the retirement age in one EU country, but it is younger than that in the EU country where you are still working.

Then you have to convince someone to claim your pension from another EU country, when they consider that you haven't retired in the one you are in.

When both my wife and I were due to claim pensions, we did so directly from each EU country we were claiming from, at the same time informing them of other countries in which we had worked.

My wife claimed her pension from UK by mail while working in Spain, when she was 60, and her pension from Spain by mail, after we had moved to France, when she was 65.

I claimed my UK and Spanish pensions by mail to each country, while in France, when I was 65.

It worked just fine, I can't understand why it was changed.

I'm quite sure that countries don't pay out pensions based on contributions made in other countries, so all they are doing is contacting another country to tell them you are retiring, and giving them details of your contributions in the country where they are.

I'd rather do that myself, so I know that it has been done, especially in countries where functionaries are in the habit of  "losing" paperwork which perhaps requires a little extra effort to deal with.

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Agree

I organised my German pension myself - I could take it 2 years before the UK pension kicked in, and at the time I thought the situation was as Linda described, so they would have been responsible for collecting my UK pension - but of course they weren't.
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So the answer is no which is rather what I thought but there is no harm in asking and what he never had he won't miss.

Nomoss - I was totally wrong on the amount he paid, it was £2.95 per week as a class 2 stamp providing you could prove you were living and working outside the UK (he sent copies of French tax returns). So he paid in around £306 for the two years which bought him an extra £10 per week. Seemed like a good deal.
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Linda1000 wrote:

Where you claim your pension from depends on which country you last

worked in.. If you last worked in France, you have to claim it in

France.

Technically that's right, and you gave a link in the other thread to back it up, but it wasn't how it worked in practice in my case.
I applied for my French pension when I stopped working as I had enough 'trimestres' but at that time I wasn't yet entitled to a UK OAP.

When I got to 65 I applied for the UK one separately and directly.
I don't know whether I did well or badly out of that, but it worked.

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