UK NI contributions towards French Pension

[Formfighter]

According to EU Regs, France should add in other Member State contributions when calculating your French pension. (As confirmed in French CNAVPL publication). My French pension provider CIPAV has refused to do this. After seeking the intervention of my French MEP, the French agency CLEISS tell me that UK NI contributions are not recognised. Has anyone had their NI contributions counted by France?

[NormanH]

They count towards number of years contributions in working out if you are eligible but don't count in calculating the amount you get.

That is based on the contributions you have paid in France.

Don"t forget that you will also get a UK OAP so you can't expect them to be counted twice.

[nomoss]

Unless the rules have changed since I claimed my pensions from UK and Spain:

The aggregate number of years paid in all EU countries together are taken into account to determine if you have the minimum number of years to qualify for any pension in each country.

Each county then calculates what you would be due if you had spent the total number of years in that country, and then reduces that in proportion to the actual years paid there.

They then compare that with the pension payable on the basis of just the number of years in that country, and pay the greater of the two amounts.

So, if you had 20 years in UK, 10 in France and 8 in Spain you would have 38 qualifying years for each country, so you would qualify for a pension in all three.

UK would pay the greater of (1) a UK pension for 20 years of payments and (2) 20/38 of the UK pension for 38 years of payments

10 years on their own would not qualify you for any pension in France, so you would get 10/38 of  the French pension for 38 years of payments.

Similarly you would also get 8/38 of the Spanish pension for 38 years of payments.

Edit: The above is based on the rules for pensions paid by the Social Security in each EU country. Since CIPAV is part of the French SS system the rules should apply

"La CIPAV est une caisse de retraite de professions libérales. Organisme de sécurité sociale, la CIPAV gère le régime d'assurance vieillesse de base, la retraite"

Source: [url]http://www.cipav-retraite.fr/[/url]

[Formfighter]

That is my understanding. But CIPAV will neither reply to any correspondence, nor use the formula quoted. CLEISS the French agency dealing with international social security relations states that UK NI contributions are not recognised by France (although Newcastle will recognise French payments). In appealing over this I am looking for the precedent of someone else who has had their UK NI contributions taken into account, in France.

[nomoss]

When I claimed my state pensions I asked for and completed the appropriate forms from each country, which asked for details of work in other countries.

Do the claim forms for your provider not ask for such details, implying that payments made in other EU countries are to be considered in the calculation?

[NormanH]

I have 3 different(and tiny) French pensions as well as the UK OAP.

As I said at the beginning my years in the UK paying NI contributions were taken into account to calculate eligibility for a French pension but obviously not in calculating the amount.

That has a formula

https://www.lassuranceretraite.fr/cs/Satellite/PUBPrincipale/SalariesPlus55/Montant-Retraite55/Comprendre-Calcul-Retraite55/Formule-Calcul55?packedargs=null

I am not sure why you aren't going through the CNAV

[woolybanana]

Norman, do you mean to say that you got credit for your years at Her Majesties Pleasure? Outrageous.

[idun]

Yes we have a french pension from the CNAV, 14 years UK NI contributions counted towards the calculation.

We asked Newcastle for a statement of National Insurance Contributions, if by chance you didn't know about that, this is the link to the form

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/forms/2005/ca3916.pdf

Once we received this, we handed it in to the CNAV and they sent out a further letter to us with the full Relevé de carrière and that had the trimestres on it for both countries.

I don't know what the CIPAV is, do they really so something like a state pension. Out of curiousity I looked on their site and it linked me to CNAVPL, and as that starts with CNAV, maybe they will know what they are doing.

[idun]

[quote user="Formfighter"]That is my understanding. But CIPAV will neither reply to any correspondence, nor use the formula quoted. CLEISS the French agency dealing with international social security relations states that UK NI contributions are not recognised by France (although Newcastle will recognise French payments). In appealing over this I am looking for the precedent of someone else who has had their UK NI contributions taken into account, in France.[/quote]

I don't know who said that at Cleiss, but I really do know that that is just plain wrong.

The problem with calling is that you have to have something in black and white, and I am looking at our paperwork from the L'assurance retraite as I type, so I do have this in black and white.

[Formfighter]

I paid 5 yrs cotisations to CIPAV, so applied to them. Nowhere on form for foreign contributions and they pay me a small pension. Newcastle pay me separately on my British contributions. I have the CLEISS reply in writing. Have written to CNAVPL , but no reply. It would be useful to have a name in CNAV to write to.

[EuroTrash]

CIPAV think they're above the law.

They're currently under investigation for simply deciding that they wouldn't credit auto entrepreneurs' full pension contributions to their pension accounts. Not sure what the latest is - just hoping they will be compelled to do it before I reach retirement age!

Good luck.

http://www.fedae-bretagne.fr/lauto-entreprise/la-cipav-arnaque-les-auto-entrepreneurs

(sorry can't do links on this site)

[nomoss]

[quote user="Formfighter"]I paid 5 yrs cotisations to CIPAV, so applied to them. Nowhere on form for foreign contributions and they pay me a small pension. Newcastle pay me separately on my British contributions. I have the CLEISS reply in writing. Have written to CNAVPL , but no reply. It would be useful to have a name in CNAV to write to.[/quote]

I'm a bit confused.

From your previous posts I understood that CIPAV were not paying you anything because they had not taken your UK contributions into account in order to qualify you for a pension.

You now say they pay you a small pension, so are you saying you would get more if they took your UK contributions into account?

Assuming you were born before 1948, you need 160 trimesters of contributions to get a full pension, so your 5 years - 20 trimesters - would give you 20/160 = 1/8th of the full pension calculated from your average salary in France.

The calculation is linear, that is, the amount paid is in direct proportion to the contributions paid.

If you have credt for, say, 80 semesters in UK, the theoretical pension for the whole period in France would be (20+80)/160, but this would be reduced in the proportion of (Semesters paid in France)/(Total semesters paid in France and UK), that is, multiplied by 20/(20+80).

So the pension paid is (20+80)/160 x 20/(20+80), which is 20/160 = 1/8th - exactly what you would get if only the French contributions were taken into account.

The contributions paid in other countries will make a difference only if the pension calculation is non-linear, or if there is a requirement for a minimum number of contributions before any pension is paid, as in many countries, including the UK.

Maybe there was nowhere on the form for foreign contributions precisely because they make no difference to the system used in France, unlike my pensions from UK and Spain, which both have a minimum contributions requirement before any pension is paid.

If you still believe you have a right to a larger pension from France, provided you have made every effort yourself to correct the situation, you can ask SOLVIT to take up your problem. [url]http://ec.europa.eu/solvit/[/url]

[nomoss]

[quote user="EuroTrash"] 

(sorry can't do links on this site)[/quote]

Have you tried putting the link between  (url) link (/url) but with square brackets [ ] instead of curved ones ( )?

[EuroTrash]

[quote user="nomoss"][quote user="EuroTrash"] 

(sorry can't do links on this site)[/quote]

Have you tried putting the link between  (url) link (/url) but with square brackets [ ] instead of curved ones ( )?

[/quote]

Not recently. But even the smilies and quotes never used to work, they all came out garbage. Let's see what this does.

Yep, still garbage.

[idun]

You have not given enough information at all.

I am not sure whether CIPAV pays out state and private pensions or just private pensions and is linked to CNAVPL?

I'll give you an example here of how it works in France. If you lack some trimestres, then the first figure they work with automatically gets reduced.

http://www.bforbank.com/epargne/retraite/glossaire/decote-retraite.html ( I have used the figures from this web site, which illustrate how it generally works, although may not apply completely to all regimes)

If you lack just one trimestre the base figure is reduced from 50% to 49.375%

If you lack 10 trimestes the base figure is reduced to 43.75%

And if you lack 20 then it goes down to 27.5%.

I know of french people getting next to no pension because they lack trimestres.

Let us give an example of how this looks with the CNAV (the general state pension people, there are other 'regimes'), please remember that this base figure is not what people actually get, there are further calculations are based on the best 25 years salary and my personal feeling is that it is impossible to get the full amount anyway.

The current assurance vieillesse monthly plafond is 3129€, of which the base figure for pensions is  50% of that giving 1564.50€.

For a low earner say a smicard, their base figure will be no where near that, as they don't even earn that much a month, never mind the plafond figure.

So you are saying that they are not paying you enough.

Well I shall be generous in my calculations and say that your base figure is 1450€ per month. (that includes your UK NI Contributions being taken into accout) That divided by 160 times 20 would give you 181.25€ per month. But as I have already mentioned, if as you are saying, they are only counting 20 trimestres, then that base figure would be down to nothing and if they were paying you 5% of the base figure I would be surprised. That would then give you 9 euros a month.

Your private pension will have given you points of a certain value, you multiply these points by the point value and get an annual pension figure. In the last 10 years, the value of the points and how much earned to get a point has not gone in favour or the retirees.

That you are getting little does not surprise me and I'll stick with my original thought, that IF you had not had your years in the UK counted, then I doubt that the french state pension would actually pay out against 5 years.

Also with the complementaire obligatoire ours will only pay out if in receipt of a french state pension, I know this, I have that in black and white.

I was wondering if you thought that you would get a full french pension if they took into account your UK years? You can't it doesn't work like that, they only pay out against actual time served in France and under their rules which are stringent and baffling.

When I say all this is complicated, I mean it.

[EuroTrash]

Just a thought, have you reached UK state pension age? If not, your NICs won't come into the equation until you do.

[idun]

They can be and are used by the french. Retirement ages vary all over the EU and UK NI contributions  most certainly work in France for a french pension, several years before they would offer access to a pension in the UK. Been there, done that[;-)]

[Formfighter]

CIPAV are under investigation for a lot more! Anyone hoping to get a pension from CIPAV should look at the site for the "Victimes de CIPAV" on www.cipav.info. They have received a bad auditors report and are the subject of many disputes and possible criminal investigation.

[Formfighter]

Yes I am confused. The published guidance is misleading. I thought adding 157 UK trimestres to 21 French trimestres and calculating a French pension, then deducting the British pension, would give me a higher French pension than that just calculated on 21 French trimestres, Otherwise what's the point of the EU Regulation?

[idun]

The french pension is complicated. I really doubt that you would have got anything from them with just 21 trimestres, so I imagined that the UK trimestres would be counted, it simply a 'working life'. Without a full working life, as I said, the french system start literally hacking away at the rights people have to a pension, french included.

EDIT and that is the EU regulation that the french have to take into account your UK trimestres, otherwise as I said, I doubt you would have got anything from the french, or maybe about 20€ every month.

What you actually get from the UK has no effect on the amount the french give you. Amounts have nothing to do with them at all.

And if you didn't know, it is possible to have a full UK pension and a full french pension. ie if someone moved to France when they were 18 and worked all their working life in France, BUT had kept up all their NI voluntary contributions in the UK, at the right age, they would get their UK pension as well as their french one. They would have paid into both systems. If you wonder why they would do that. Well maybe like us, might have imagined that one fine day they would return to the UK during their working life and want to be covered.

We got some of it wrong upon french retirement. The calculations are so complicated that one never can get the maximum figure and for me it always implied that the maximum figure could be attained. I do not believe it is possible now, as far as I can tell, the goal posts are moved every year.

[Formfighter]

I looked at SOLVIIT and their advice differs from yours -

Example

Rosa worked 20 years in country A and 20 years in country B.

At the national rates, she would get 800 euros a month from A and 900 euros from B — a total monthly pension of 1 700 euros.

But taking into account the contribution periods abroad (the 'EU rates'), Rosa's monthly pension would be 1 000 euros from A and 1 150 euros from B.

Rosa is entitled to this higher amount — 2 150 euros a month.

[YCCMB]

I wonder (rhetorically) why they say "country A and country B". Probably because their formula grossly oversimplifies things.

[nomoss]

[quote user="Formfighter"]I looked at SOLVIIT and their advice differs from yours -

Example

Rosa worked 20 years in country A and 20 years in country B.

At the national rates, she would get 800 euros a month from A and 900 euros from B — a total monthly pension of 1 700 euros.

But taking into account the contribution periods abroad (the 'EU rates'), Rosa's monthly pension would be 1 000 euros from A and 1 150 euros from B.

Rosa is entitled to this higher amount — 2 150 euros a month.[/quote]

I have looked at this statement in the SOLVIT section on Pensions, but there is no corresponding calculation to back it up, and I think it is very imaginative, to say the least.

A situation like that could arise if country A had a system which favoured people who were in the system longer, by paying a gradually higher amount for each year accumulated, and country B had a system which did the opposite - increasing the pension by a smaller amount for each accumulated year

As far as I know, the pension paid in France is directly proportional to the number of years for which contributions have been paid, so, as the example I set out in my first reply shows, it makes no difference whether or not contributions paid in other countries are considered.

The calculation of French pensions is set out in a link posted above by NormanH, so you can work out yourself what it should be for both cases (taking your UK payments into account or not), and if it is incorrect, ask SOLVIT to take up your case on the grounds that the French authorities refuse to consider it.

[nomoss]

Before you spend time in corresponding with SOLVIT you might like to consider my experience with them a couple of years ago.

I sold a property in Spain, and as I was no longer resident, 3% of the sale price was withheld by the Notary to cover possible CGT liabilty.

As we made a loss on the sale I reclaimed this, using my address in France.

After many months I was told that I or a representative had to appear at a tax office in Barcelona, so I paid a Gestor over 300€ to do this, only to find they just collected a letter asking for further information.

I simultaneously complained to SOLVIT, as I knew that the requirement for non-residents to have a representative in Spain had been abolished years ago for people not involved in commercial activities.

Here is a copy of my response to SOLVIT after receiving their "solution". Their explanation was totally wrong, as the confusion was caused by the spanish tax office sending registered letters to the apartment we had sold, which was in any case unoccupied for most of the year.

Ref. Enquiry 93073 . This was regarding delays in obtaining

a refund or even a decision for a period of 18 months regarding the capital

loss made on the sale of my spanish property. and particularly the fact that I

or a representative were being asked to appear in person simply to receive

correspondence from them.

I received the following reply from yourselves: (Only the

relevant part is copied here)

 

"Dear citizen

For your information, there is not EU harmonization as taxes

are concerned. EU countries address the issue with their own domestic tax laws

(and also with tax conventions between two or more countries).

In this context, tax legislation in Spain requires that

non-resident taxable persons must have a representative in the country to deal

with notifications, requests and payment of taxes. This representative doesn’t

need to be a legal consultancy or a legal agent, although most non residents

decide to hire their services. In fact, it can be any person legally living in

Spain. A different matter is the price of the services that you pay to your

agency or agent: this is based on a free contractual relationship, and if you

are not satisfied, you can decline its services."

 

Regarding appointment of a Fiscal Representative, I

understand that where the only asset in Spain is a property it is NOT

compulsory to appoint a Fiscal Representative.

There was previously such a requirement, but this was in

force only for two or three years, ceasing to be compulsory on the 1st January

1994. I was resident in Spain at that time, and recall that the law was

repealed following a challenge in the European Court.

I have also checked with my previous Gestor in Spain, who

assured me that I am NOT required to have a Fiscal Representative.

Yesterday (20/09/2011) I went to the Tax Office in Gerona,

where I resolved the problem, which was that they still had my old spanish

address as my Fiscal Residence. They also confirmed that I do NOT have to have

a Fiscal Representative.

I do believe that the information you provided me was out of

date by several years and should be corrected.

EDIT: My guess is that SOLVIT's functions have probably been outsourced to some third world country[:D]

 

 

[idun]

SOLVIIT also said this:

Step 2 — EU-equivalent rate

Then each country adds together your contribution

periods from all countries and works out how much pension you would get

if these contributions had all been paid into its own scheme.

This amount is then adjusted to reflect the actual time you were covered in that country (called the pro rata benefit).

Result

These 2 amounts are compared and you will receive whichever is higher.

Each country's decision on your claim will be explained in a special note, the P1 form, you will receive.

I found these links

http://www.cleiss.fr/particuliers/preparer_votre_retraite883.html

This one shows how they actually calculate french pensions including the minoration, which I do not believe has happened to you, but would have had IF they had only counted your 20 french trimestres. Also the SAM and RAM are mentioned which means that everyone gets a different amount all based on a top figure. This top figure being unobtainable as far as I can see.

https://www.lassuranceretraite.fr/cs/Satellite/PUBPrincipale/SalariesMoins35/Droits-Cas-Par-Cas-Salaries/En-Cas-Activites-France-Etranger/Calcul-Retraite-Activites-Etranger/Calcul-Retraite-Activites-Etranger-Zone-Reglementaire?packedargs=null

There are some good examples on here.

I think that your calculation must be right, what does your P1 say.

I don't like the Rosa example, it is a very poor example, as it doesn't say what the national pension is if someone had worked all their working life in either of the countries. And I really would like to know where A and B, especially B is, as that means that they dish out a whooping great state pension. Or maybe it is Denmark, where lots is paid in to start with![Www]