Child Benefit - Pension Contributions

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3400 into my SIPP so far this tax year. Will probably need around 10k to get down to the basic tax rate level.

The extra monthly take home pay from the tax code already assuming I will make the same sipp payments as last year will help a lot rather than get refund after the tax year.

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Coming to end of tax year I have managed to put £10.5k into my SIPP so far. I have had pay increase and larger bonus this year but put most of that into workplace pension so my taxable employed income will be ~ £63k. The SIPP payment by my calcs should increase my basic rate limit enough to cover the £63k so only paying basic rate tax. For child benefit from what I can see the £50k threshold for the Child Benefit tax charge has not increased (e.g. for inflation) but the £10.5k should reduce my adjusted income (including interest etc..) enough to be just below £50k. When we do our SA we should still be able to get the married allowance so will apply on my wife's SA.

With the additional workplace pension it means I will have have used £46k pension allowance so am going back to 3 years ago to carry forward annual allowance from that year as my pension contributions where much less at that time.

I will aim to do the same sort of SIPP contribution for next tax year to again get down to basic rate band. After that I unlikely to have enough annual allowance / hopefully get pay rise!

I will turn 40 this year so have opened and funded Lifetime ISA whilst I can as that will be useful in coming years and my pension contributions likely to be at the annual allowance level with no carry forward.

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Update and latest learnings in case useful for others 

In tax year end April 22 I thought I paid enough into SIPP to get just at the child benefit limit however I didn’t calculate correctly (bank interest was the issue) and had small amount of income in the 40% rate so could not get the marriage allowance. This year just gone I have made sure I put enough in to give a buffer and everything was at basic rate when I submitted my SA last week. my wife will claim the marriage allowance when she does her SA.

I thought 22/23 would be the last year of being able to use pension to pay only basic rate as I have used up or lost all my carry forward AA but the increase to 60k may mean I can do it again this year. pay rise and likely bonus will mean I cannot get down to basic rate but should at least get to keep some the child benefit. I will also look to get some money into the lifetime isa and potentially my wife pension as her self employed income increased past year. 

The other thing I learnt is how HMRC treat the sipp payments on your tax code via SA. There is a second box after you add your pension contributions where you tell them how much of that was a one off payment. If you leave that blank as I did in first year without realising then they assume you will make the same SIPP payment every year and tax code is updated. This can be helpful if you are going to make the sipp payments as you pay less tax via PAYE giving more cash to make the sipp payments in the tax year (rather than refund after the tax year after submit your SA). This year I did say some of the payment was one off as I plan to increase my work SS pension and make less SIPP. Assume my tax code will change inline with that.