Pension Contributions & Self Assessment

rapha_2

Dear MSE Community,

Would anyone be kind enough to help me with the following:

I made:
12 regular pension contributions totaling £3110 on which I received a further 25% tax relief (£777.5).
1 single contribution of £10,000 on which 25% tax relief was applied (£2500)
Total: £13,110 in member contributions plus £3277.5 in tax relief.

My employment income for the year was £115,000 and I want to claim further tax relief - which box and which amount do I need to put in my Self Assessment return?

You have said that you paid into a personal pension and retirement annuity in the tax year 6 April 2017 to 5 April 2018. Please complete the following questions.

The answers to these questions can be found on any pension certificate or receipt you get from the administrator.


Payments to registered pension schemes (Also known as PPR) where basic rate tax relief will be claimed by your pension provider (called Relief at source). Enter the payments and basic rate tax: Help about: Pension payments - opens in a new window
£12500.00

Payments to a retirement annuity contract (Also known as RAR) where basic rate tax relief will not be claimed by your provider: Help about: Annuity payments - opens in a new window
Do not include PPR values here
£

Payments to your employer's scheme which were not deducted from your pay before tax: Help about: Payments to employer's scheme - opens in a new window
£
Payments to an overseas pension scheme which is not UK-registered which are eligible for tax relief and were not deducted from your pay before tax: Help about: Overseas pension payments - opens in a new window
£

Thanks a lot!

MichelleUK

It goes into box 1 on page TR4 of the actual printed return.

In your quote above, where you show 12,500 this should be 16,388 but you do have it under the correct description!

rapha_2

Thanks very much Michelle. Using the 16,388 figure mentioned my tax over payment is 6,234 higher.

Because:
A) basic rate limit increased by 16,388 --> 20% better vs higher rate (3,277.6)
my personal allowance is 7,392 higher on which no higher tax rate is paid (2,956.8)
A+B = 6,234

Does that look correct? Should A) happen at all? Is that in addition to the £3277.5 in tax relief that I already received in my pension contribution?

Finally, what do you mean by the correct description? Is the one I was using for the 12,500 incorrect? (my pension provider is Royal London and both my employer and myself pay into that scheme).

Thanks again

MichelleUK

rapha wrote: »

Thanks very much Michelle. Using the 16,388 figure mentioned my tax over payment is 6,234 higher.

Because:
A) basic rate limit increased by 16,388 --> 20% better vs higher rate (3,277.6)
my personal allowance is 7,392 higher on which no higher tax rate is paid (2,956.8)
A+B = 6,234

Does that look correct? Should A) happen at all? Is that in addition to the £3277.5 in tax relief that I already received in my pension contribution?

Finally, what do you mean by the correct description? Is the one I was using for the 12,500 incorrect? (my pension provider is Royal London and both my employer and myself pay into that scheme).

Thanks again

It looks ok to me.

A - yes, this is just the way that HMRC give you the remaining 20% tax relief that was not put directly into your pension.
B - As you had earned £115,000, you had started to lose your personal allowance. For every £2 earned over £100k, you lose £1 of your personal allowance. You have managed to avoid losing most of it as your pension contribution was so high.

No, your choice of pension description was correct based on how you described your pension payments. I was just commenting that the amount entered should be 16,388.