class 2 contributions

[sandbach99]

My husband has been self-employed since 1967, for some time he had a partner and an accountant was sorting out tax, contributions etc, the patnership ended in the middle of the 1990s with the accountant again paying everyone what was owed or so we thought.
We then started to get letters from Contributions agency saying we owed some 5 or 6 years contributions these letters were taken to the accountant who said he would deal with them
at some stage the accountant left the offices and we found out when husband was summoned for none payment, I sent copies of the accounts to the Contributions Agency showing we believed the Contributions were paid, it took 15 months for them to reply saying they had not received any money the Agency then reissued the summons and we had to paid via the court what we owed

Now husband has retired and has not been awarded a full pension it now seems that athough we paid all the contributions requested some were paid over 6 years late and therefore do not count and if he pays class 3 contributions for the same years this would then count towards his pension in other words pay twice for some years

I can only find information dating back to 2001 regarding the six year rule does any one know if it applies to the 1990s or where I can find out if it did or are the Contributions Agency mistakenly applying this rule Thanks

[themas]

1. I don't have a definite answer to your question, but I think it is almost inevitable that there will always have been a time limit of some sort on making contributions.

2. However, if I have understood you correctly, you are saying all the necessary contributions were paid but some were paid over 6 years late so are not being taken into account for the pension. It seems to me that in this situation it is quite wrong for the Contributions agency to keep those contributions - they should repay the money to you (& you could then use it to help pay for the Class 3 contributions you need to make). I suggest you make a formal complaint to them about this, & if they say they are entitled to keep the money ask them to quote the specific Statutory Instrument or other legislation which gives them that right. If not satisfied, you can complain to the Independent Adjudicator. See the HMRC complaints leaflet here:

http://www.adjudicato....uk/pdf/factsheet.pdf

3. Apart from all this,what you say looks rather like fraud or very serious error on the part of the accountant. Have you considered a claim against the firm he/she was working for? Or if the accountant was a sole trader are you still in contact because he/she should have had insurance against this sort of thing?