We are accountants and tax advisers, and we do not get involved in pension matters. However, this is what we know about the interaction between National Insurance Contributions and the UK State Pension.

If you are following our recommended director shareholder payments pattern, then your salary should be high enough to give you a National Insurance credit, even though you don’t pay Class 1 National Insurance.
A full year at this level is a “qualifying year”. This page https://www.gov.uk/state-pension/eligibility used to say:
“You might not pay National Insurance Contributions because you’re earning less …

Hopefully, running your own business has been a good experience. When business comes to an end, we know that the double barrelled question “should I dissolve my company or put it on ice” is often asked.
If you have finished with the company and no longer need it, then dissolve it. Keeping it will only add to your costs. A simple dissolution guide is here.
It is not possible to ever make a traded company become truly dormant again. There will always be things to do. A dormant company is one which …

VAT on line
Log in to your tax account . . .
https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/gg/sign-in?continue=/business-account
If you don’t have a Government Gateway account yet, you can create one by following this report. If you do have one, continue working on this page.
Select “Manage Account” and work through these screens . . .

Enter our agent code including the capitals and the hyphen just like this:
Proactive-FWHJ1NXXTG6V

It will take about 24 hours for all HMRC systems to be updated. Once that happens we will be able to submit VAT returns on your behalf.