Adjusted Net Income with childcare vouchers or pension

bo_rai_cho

Had a letter from HMRC about the high income child benefit charge

They said I can't use childcare vouchers to reduce my Adjusted Net Income, nor my pension.

I am happy to pay the amount due via self assessment. However I thought pensions and CCV can be used for this? I contribute part of my salary (salary sacrifice), is it only personal pensions and not company pensions that can be used?

Dazed_and_confused

Only certain pension contributions can be deducted and salary sacrifice isn't one of them.

For two reasons.

Firstly salary sacrifice means you haven't contributed anything to a pension. You have agreed to have a lower salary in return for your employer contributing to the pension. That is also the reason why there is no pension tax relief with salary sacrifice pension contributions.

Secondly the salary sacrifice means your taxable pay is less than it would otherwise be. Say for example your "salary" was £75k and you sacrificed £20k then your P60 would show taxable pay of £55k. If you then deducted the £20k again you would be double counting it.