As explained in NIM25001, a person is not entitled to pay (ie, is precluded from paying) Class 3 NICs in certain circumstances. One of those is that they cannot pay for the tax year in which they are age 17 or 18 if, in an earlier tax year, they have satisfied the first contribution condition for:
Mr T was age 16 on 20th May 2002. After leaving school in July,
he finds a job in a bank. But, not liking the work, he leaves on
5th April 2003. His earnings are £8,000.
He spends the whole of the next two tax years –
2003/04 and 2004/05 – touring around Great Britain. On his
return home, he reads a newspaper article about paying Class 3 NICs
for pension purposes to cover gaps in his NI record. So he enquires
about paying Class 3 NICs for the 2003/04 and 2004/05 tax years.
The amount of Mr T’s earnings in the 2002/03 tax year
is enough to make the year a qualifying one for the purposes of
satisfying the first contribution condition for the above benefits
(see
NIM25011). As such, he is precluded from
paying Class 3 NICs for the 2003/04 and 2004/05 tax years because
he has satisfied the first contribution condition for the above
benefits in a year – 2002/03 - before the ones in which he is
age 17 and 18.
For details of the other circumstances in which a person is
precluded from paying Class 3 NICs, see
NIM25006 - NIM25012 and
NIM25014 - NIM25017.
