2017-18 pension conts in excess of £40k

TrickyDicky101

I have just filed SA for 2017-18 using the online portal. I declared a payment to my personal pension of (gross) £26k.

With company pension conts (salary sacrifice basis) I have exceeded the £40k annual allowance.

I do have available allowance from prior year so that I should not suffer penalty.

However, nowhere in the SA was I asked to confirm what my total pension conts were (inclusive of company conts) - so looking at the SA alone only the £26k to personal pension are visible.


Will HMRC pick up that total conts exceed £40k and ask me to confirm/provide evidence that I had sufficient allowance from prior year?

Never having exceeded the annual allowance before I, perhaps mistakenly, expected to need to declare such in the SA itself so am concerned I may have filled something in wrong or made an incorrect declaration on the submission.


Edit: The calculated tax due on the SA (and refund applicable as a result of the personal pension cont) is inline with my expectations (and does not include any penalty for exceeding £40k annual pension cont limit).

MichelleUK

There is no requirement to declare that you have used 'pension carry forward' on your tax return.

In theory, all of your pension companies send returns to HMRC showing the amounts that have been added to your pensions, so if HMRC eventually disagree with your contributions, they would contact you.

Just make sure that you keep your paperwork that proves that you were entitled to use carry forward!

TrickyDicky101

Thanks Michelle. I thought (incorrectly) there would either be some form of explicit declaration on my part or a definite warning on theirs (equivalent to the warning of low interest income declared). Fair enough if not! Many thanks for your reply.

MichelleUK

TrickyDicky101 wrote: »

Thanks Michelle. I thought (incorrectly) there would either be some form of explicit declaration on my part or a definite warning on theirs (equivalent to the warning of low interest income declared). Fair enough if not! Many thanks for your reply.

Yes, it does seem odd, as they ask so much other information but just for added comfort, you can read it here under Annual Allowances:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pensions-tax-charges-on-any-excess-over-the-lifetime-allowance-annual-allowance-special-annual-allowance-and-on-unauthorised-payments-hs345-self/hs345-pension-savings-tax-charges-2016#annual-allowance-calculators

where it states:

"You’re able to carry forward unused annual allowance automatically. You don’t need to make any claim to HMRC to carry forward unused annual allowance and you don’t need to show this on your tax return if your unused annual allowance means that an annual allowance excess tax charge isn’t due. You do need to have been a member of a pension scheme during each of the carry forward years."