Unusual pay practices

The taxpayer had worked for many years on offshore installations in the North Sea. He worked the standard shifts of two weeks offshore and two weeks back onshore. His employers paid the vast bulk of his salary for the weeks he was offshore and only paid a small retainer for the time back onshore.

This resulted in his National Insurance bill being nearly halved since the retainer element for the onshore fortnight fell below the National Insurance threshold.

This however meant that when he came to retire he found that he had a much reduced SERPS entitlement since this pension depends on the amount of primary NI contributions paid in the year.

He claimed that the contributions should have been calculated on monthly or four-weekly periods or alternatively that the Secretary of State should have used the powers in the Social Security...