Do I need to claim higher rate pension tax relief?

[DickP]

Hi,

I am 40% tax payer on PAYE with employer pension. (I also have my own separate smaller pension fund)

My employer pension is deducted from my pay before tax, as is my salary sacrifice additional voluntary contribution.

Do I need to apply for the additional tax relief by self assessment?

Thanks,

[Wilmslowboy]

I would suggest yes.


You should be able to see online how much you put into your separate pension and how it was treated by your pension co.

I added £10k a few years ago and they grossed it up £12,500 (adding back the 20% tax relief), at the end of the year this was all detailed on my self assessment, and I got a further tax rebate of similar 20%.



Edited to make clear my point is about the separate pension you contribute to.

Edited by Wilmslowboy on Thursday 8th June 04:51

[bogie]

If you are contributing into employer scheme by salary sacrifice there is no tax to claim back because you never paid any in the first place....as you state, its "before tax". This is the whole point of salary sacrifice i.e. its tax and NI free. theres nothing further to do ....and your employer saves their part of the NI contribution as well.

My employer scheme works in exactly the same way.

You still need to claim back tax relief on your personal pension payment if thats paid out of earnings you have paid tax on.....

In practice each year, you need to tell the tax man of the total amount paid into personal pension, inc the basic rate relief the scheme has claimed, from the annual statement.

(edited for accuracy and add exact wording from SA form below)

"Do not include payments you make to your employer’s pension scheme which are deducted from your pay before tax
or payments made by your employer. If your contributions and other pension inputs are more than the Annual Allowance,
you should also fill in boxes 10 to 12 on page Ai 4 of the ‘Additional information‘ pages."

Edited by bogie on Thursday 8th June 16:40

[Richonenope]

You dont need to tell HMRC how much you have paid in to pensions on your tax return (unless you have paid in more the Annual Allowance AND have an Annual Allowance tax charge to pay - Annual Allowance this year for those not caught by the higher earners adjustment is £60,000 plus carry forward). You need to claim relief on contributions from your taxed salary if a higher rate or additional rate tax payer.

[quinny100]

Are you in a public sector scheme?

Do you contribute to your smaller other pension?

If the answers are Yes and No, then you won’t have anything to claim as all your contributions will have been taken pre-tax.

[Rufus Stone]

DickP said:

Hi,

I am 40% tax payer on PAYE with employer pension. (I also have my own separate smaller pension fund)

My employer pension is deducted from my pay before tax, as is my salary sacrifice additional voluntary contribution.

Do I need to apply for the additional tax relief by self assessment?

Thanks,

No.

You have stated the pension contribution is deducted from gross pay so you haven't paid any tax on it to recoup.

[Countdown]

If you’re talking about the Employer Scheme then no (contributions were made without any tax being deducted).

If you’re talking about the SIPP then yes, you need to claim the additional 20% tax relief.

[bmwmike]

Richonenope said:

You dont need to tell HMRC how much you have paid in to pensions on your tax return (unless you have paid in more the Annual Allowance AND have an Annual Allowance tax charge to pay - Annual Allowance this year for those not caught by the higher earners adjustment is £60,000 plus carry forward). You need to claim relief on contributions from your taxed salary if a higher rate or additional rate tax payer.

Agree normal payments via SS are not declared on self assessment - at least, i've never done it.

For payments over allowance - where on the self assessment are these declared? I wasn't aware you had to.