Tax Relief On Company Pension?

bfgun

I contribute to an employer provided pension scheme and wondered whether I should be benefiting from tax relief on my contributions.

My employer pays an equal amount to that which I pay each month, but over the years I have never seen any tax relief on the amount I have paid.

Are tax relief contributions only applied to those who have a personal pension?

molerat

Look at your pay slip, likely your pension is deducted from gross pay so before tax is deducted - taxable pay will be lower than gross pay.  Those paying into a personal pension do so from taxed pay so have the tax added back once in the pension.

bfgun

molerat said:

Look at your pay slip, likely your pension is deducted from gross pay so before tax is deducted - taxable pay will be lower than gross pay.

Thanks. I will check.

Dazed_and_C0nfused

If you contribute using net pay method there is no pension tax relief, you save tax on your wages instead i.e. your salary is £30k with 5% pension contribution = £28.5k taxable pay.

If you don't contribute but use salary sacrifice it is similar, no pension tax relief but as you don't get paid the part sacrificed you save income tax and NI on it.

Marcon

bfgun said:

I contribute to an employer provided pension scheme and wondered whether I should be benefiting from tax relief on my contributions.

My employer pays an equal amount to that which I pay each month, but over the years I have never seen any tax relief on the amount I have paid.

Are tax relief contributions only applied to those who have a personal pension?

If you're paying out of net pay (i.e. after your pay has been taxed), then the pension provider will be claiming basic rate tax relief on your behalf and adding it straight to your pension pot. Perhaps check one of your statements (or look online if you have online access to your pension) to see if that's what is happening?

bfgun

Just following up on my question.

As a number of you suggested, my pension is taken before tax and NI, hence I am saving the tax element.

Thank you for your help.