Civil Service Pension and Annual Allowance

fmonkey

My wife has received a surprising letter indicating that she had exceed her annual allowance and that tax maybe due on this. However the figures indicated seem strange to us.


Is anyone able to provide a simple calculation in order that we can work out what total Alpha contributions are including employee one and also the same for Classic added years?

Silvertabby

There is no simple sum, I'm afraid. In the case of DB pensions it, isn't the contributions that count - it's the value of the pension.

By all means query the figures with CS pensions - someone there should be able to explain them to your wife.

jcbaow

I'm sorry I can't help your specific query but my husband and I have both had similar letters from the NHS pension. I rang them and I wasnt convinced the person I spoke to completely understood the statement too but they sent me some info about being able to carry over unused allowance that would mean there's no tax charge despite the way the statement reads. My accountant reckons they've changed the way they report hence receiving the letter for the first time.

fmonkey

My wife will just about be OK for the previous years and this because of the carry over factor. There seems to of been £80,00 available in one year. It is going forward that we are concerned about from 2018-2019 onwards.


My instant feeling is to end the added years she has been paying for the last 25 years, but a decision on that would need to be made soon as you can only do it once yearly in April.

hugheskevi

There seems to of been £80,00 available in one year.

But you couldn't carry all of that forward - only £40,000 at most (and it will be less than that if there was any pension input in that year, which it sounds like there was).

My instant feeling is to end the added years she has been paying for the last 25 years, but a decision on that would need to be made soon as you can only do it once yearly in April.

You need to understand the process, calculation and how likely future breaches are.

For example, was this breach caused by a one-off promotion which will not occur in the future, or was it just by having very high earnings in a career average scheme.

You should read the guide below if you have not already seen it:

http://www.civilservicepensionscheme.org.uk/media/246147/pension-savings-statement-guide-2017.pdf

ianthy

My OH works in the Civil Service and is a member of the Premium Pension scheme. A few weeks ago we contacted Pensions to check how much of the annual allowance is available after his normal contributions and added years. The pensions team added the total contributions from OH and the CS x16. This equalled £25k leaving £15k max available for the current year. Really the CS pensions team should be able to do the calculation for your wife.