How much pension contributions..

Ciprico

Looking to max out pension contributions wife can make (using previous years unused allowances)
She earns about £25k (ie figure on P60, Sal sac'ing £500 per month
No other pension contributions apart from very small company contributions (2% ?)
Is the max she can contribute now £25k (current years earnings), or could she potentially go back
3 years and contribute £75k. 
She's early fifties so motivation is the 6% gain through 25% tax free pension withdrawal, and she may not work till 67 so could have plenty 
of personal allowance to use up...
Whatever the figure is, can she contribute that to her SIPP and let them "sort out" this years and previous years allowance.
We won't be putting in the max, but would like to put in 50k
Many Thanks for any comments

Linton

You (as opposed to your employer) cannot pay more into your pension than your earnings in any one tax year.  There is no carry over.

With SalSac the contribution is actually made by your employer, not you.  You have a reduction in salary matching the pension contribution.  So does her £25K figure include the SalSac amount?  If it does, the maximum she can pay into her SIPP is £25K-12X£500=£19K.  If the SalSac is in addition to her £25K the maximum she can pay in is £25K.

Dox

Linton said:

You (as opposed to your employer) cannot pay more into your pension than your earnings in any one tax year.  There is no carry over.

With SalSac the contribution is actually made by your employer, not you.  You have a reduction in salary matching the pension contribution.  So does her £25K figure include the SalSac amount?  If it does, the maximum she can pay into her SIPP is £25K-12X£500=£19K.  If the SalSac is in addition to her £25K the maximum she can pay in is £25K.

She can't salary sacrifice below national minimum wage, so if her earnings are £25K, she can only pay in £20K (and get tax relief claimed on her behalf by her SIPP provider, which will bring that up to £25K). 

Linton

Dox said:

Linton said:

You (as opposed to your employer) cannot pay more into your pension than your earnings in any one tax year.  There is no carry over.

With SalSac the contribution is actually made by your employer, not you.  You have a reduction in salary matching the pension contribution.  So does her £25K figure include the SalSac amount?  If it does, the maximum she can pay into her SIPP is £25K-12X£500=£19K.  If the SalSac is in addition to her £25K the maximum she can pay in is £25K.

She can't salary sacrifice below national minimum wage, so if her earnings are £25K, she can only pay in £20K (and get tax relief claimed on her behalf by her SIPP provider, which will bring that up to £25K). 

The OPs wife was planning to pay the extra contribution into a SIPP so in this case there is no minimum wage issue.

Ciprico

As usual Linton is spot on...
The SalSac will remain unchanged, so this additional pension contribution will be from (taxed) savings into SIPP.
In any event she works part time, so is well above min salary / per hours worked, and we will be increasing her SalSac from April.