Higher rate tax relief

Micawber_2

I wonder if anyone can help me.
One of my new year resolutions was to get to grips with my finances and to a large extent I have. I now want to get to grips with my personal pension and what a minefield the are!!
I'm 36 years old and have a couple of pensions, paying only about £50 per month into each.
I know I could do with upping my contributions considerably (which I plan to do) but while looking through websites such as this I believe I may also have missed out on some tax relief.
I have been a higher rate tax payer for at least two years but have never informed anyone of this. How do I go about ensuring I get this extra tax relief. How does it work and would it be back dated or have I lost out on the last two years? Has anyone got any experience of such matters and can give me some pointers?
Thanks!!!

Paul_Varjak

Have a look at the following:

http://www.inlandrevenue.gov.uk/pensionschemes/faqs/taxrel.htm#e

Pal

The tax office will eventually send you tax returns to complete for the years in which you were a higher rate payer. So you may have to complete 3 or 4 at once! (This happened to me). You can then claim the tax relief back.

Alternatively give them a call and ask them to send you the forms now so that you can claim the tax back.

Welome to the joys of self assessment!

System

You will need P60 and P11D Benefits statement from your employer to help you complete the self assessment form, this is then sent to Inland Revenue for calculation usually takes about 2 to 3 months to complete. It depends upon when your employer produces P11D form, mine was end of June so I could not apply for backdated tax relief refund until then. I got a refund cheque this week for year 2004-2005 and new tax code for year 2005-2006 so the balance of overpayment for this year I will get in salary this month.

Money is better in our pockets than Gordon Brown's.