Non Tax payer- How much pension input can we do

Smudge's_Lot

I have been searching the site and cannot find an answer...
My wife has a workplace pension, but she earns less than this years Personal Allowance of £12500, so therefore earns, but does not pay tax.
How much can we top her pension up by?
Is it just a maximum of £3660, or is it her earnings level of say £11000?


Thoroughly confused!!!

xylophone

See https://www.litrg.org.uk/latest-news/news/181214-do-you-understand-how-tax-relief-your-pension-contributions-works

Let's suppose a person is under 75 and his only income is his salary of £12,500 (tax year 19/20). He pays no tax.

However, he could contribute £10,000 to a pension scheme operating "relief at source" eg stakeholder/personal pension/ some workplace pensions and receive tax relief of £2,500.

However, if he were in a pension scheme operating "net pay" no tax relief would be received.

Triumph13

So the first thing to do is to check whether her work takes her pension contribution from her pre tax salary (not that she pays tax!) or post tax. That should, hopefully be fairly clear from the payslip ie is the pension deduction before or after the space for the tax deduction.
If the contribution is pre-tax then don't pay any more into it than needed to get the employer contribution - set up a separate pension instead.

Albermarle

then don't pay any more into it than needed to get the employer contribution - set up a separate pension instead.

It can often be that workplace pensions are perfectly Ok and the best place for additional contributions rather than setting up a separate pension.
Without all the details it is impossible to advise one way or the other.