Too late to pay

The appellant was born in the UK in 1938. He began paying National Insurance until he moved to Australia in 1959 where he stayed for the rest of his working life. He made no further National Insurance payments until 2002 when he claimed a UK state retirement pension and he was allowed to make back payments of Class 3 National Insurance for six years back to 1996. He applied to pay late Class 3 contributions for the years 1959 to 1996 but HMRC disallowed the claim on the basis that he had not paid contributions during the prescribed period and this was due to a failure to exercise due care and diligence for the purposes of the Social Security (Contributions) Regulations 2001 SI 2001/1004 reg 50.

The appellant said that he had rights under EU law and that reg 48(3)(b) imposing a six year...