Does pension annual allowance carry-over reset?

[oyster]

Assume the below figures.

Year 1 total pension contributions £1,000
Year 2 £1,000
Year 3 £1,000
Year 4 £117,000
Year 5 £41,000

This entirely falls within the limits as you can use up to the previous 3 years of unused allowance.

BUT what about year 6?
Does the allowance reset to £40,000? Or is the allowance actually only £1,000 as the previous 3 years contributions total £159,000?

[PurpleMoonlight]

You can only carry forward from the previous three years to the current one. What is not used is lost.

It might help to look at it like this, this assumes year 5 is the 2016-17 tax year and I am ignoring the possible £80,000 annual allowance for 2015-16:

Year 1 £1,000 + £49,000
Year 2 £1,000 + £28,000 + £1,000
Year 3 £1,000
Year 4 £117,000 - £49,000 - £28,000
Year 5 £41,000 - £1,000

So year 6 will be £40,000 + £39,000 (year 3).

[oyster]

PurpleMoonlight said:

You can only carry forward from the previous three years to the current one. What is not used is lost.

It might help to look at it like this, this assumes year 5 is the 2016-17 tax year and I am ignoring the possible £80,000 annual allowance for 2015-16:

Year 1 £1,000 + £49,000
Year 2 £1,000 + £28,000 + £1,000
Year 3 £1,000
Year 4 £117,000 - £49,000 - £28,000
Year 5 £41,000 - £1,000

So year 6 will be £40,000 + £39,000 (year 3).

I'm struggling to see where your numbers are coming from.

I guess what I'm asking fundamentally is whether the allowance also includes a rolling 4-year limit as well (of £160,000)?

[PurpleMoonlight]

Yes it's a rolling allowance.

In year 6 the maximum contribution is £79,000 being:

Year 3 £39,000
Year 4 £0
Year 5 £0
Year 6 £40,000

[LeoSayer]

There is a calculator for this on the HMRC website

[Jockman]

It may help to know that when using up previous year's allowances you always use up the CURRENT year first.

[PurpleMoonlight]

Yes.

You must have some pension provision already though, and if it's a personal contribution you will need £160,000 of taxable earned income in the tax year of payment to get full tax relief.