Does this payslip look ok?

Da_Crojanz

So to get my head round this...

The £159 I pay, plus the £39 relief should add up to 5% of my total salary? Doing the calculations it more or less does (198 x 20 x 12 comes to within about £40 of my official annual salary).

I can get my gross contribution figure from the statement which should work out roughly at £198 a month?

So I then tell HMRC what I am paying (not sure if I say 198 or 159), inform them it is RAS and I should get higher rate relief and then what should I expect the response to be? Can anyone advise a ballpark figure per month of how much it will change?

[Deleted User]

Da_Crojanz said:

So to get my head round this...

The £159 I pay, plus the £39 relief should add up to 5% of my total salary? Doing the calculations it more or less does (198 x 20 x 12 comes to within about £40 of my official annual salary).

I can get my gross contribution figure from the statement which should work out roughly at £198 a month?

So I then tell HMRC what I am paying (not sure if I say 198 or 159), inform them it is RAS and I should get higher rate relief and then what should I expect the response to be? Can anyone advise a ballpark figure per month of how much it will change?

‘Dear HMRC - I have been paying £159 per month into a relief at source personal pension since ?????. I would like to claim higher rate relief for this payment and would be grateful if you would adjust my tax code accordingly. Additionally, I would like to claim a repayment for the tax years prior to the current one’

That’s all you need to say. Based on what you have stated you should receive additional tax relief of (198 x (42% - 20%) x 12 = £522.72 per annum or £43.56 per month.

Da_Crojanz

Excellent, thanks a lot for all this. Aware it has been a lot of questions!

zagfles

For previous years they'll want exact amounts to work out the refund, so still get the pension tax statements. Going forwards approx amounts will do and they'll adjust your tax code, if pay/conts vary tell them.

Da_Crojanz

Just to avoid confusion, here are the latest transactions on the account. Slightly concerned there is no mention of the "gross" amount anywhere. Does this still look like a RAS scheme where I could claim back on?

Dazed_and_C0nfused

The gross (on a monthly basis) is the total of the tax relief and employee contribution.

£159.86 + £39.97 = £199.83

20% of £199.83 is £39.97

Da_Crojanz

Plot thickens on this and now I'm even more confused. My contribution is actually 4% and employer matches it at 4%. This comes out at exactly 159.86 a month. Does this change anything, taking into account the above statement? I thought I had my head around this but no idea if this changes it or not.  I spoke to the pension company who got my account up pnscreen and still said I was entitled to apply for extra tax relief but no idea how the new figure affects that.

zagfles

Da_Crojanz said:

Plot thickens on this and now I'm even more confused. My contribution is actually 4% and employer matches it at 4%. This comes out at exactly 159.86 a month. Does this change anything, taking into account the above statement? I thought I had my head around this but no idea if this changes it or not.  I spoke to the pension company who got my account up pnscreen and still said I was entitled to apply for extra tax relief but no idea how the new figure affects that.

From the pension statements it's obvious that your net contribution is 4%, and your gross is 5%. Or are you saying it's changed since then? It's easier than usual in your case as they are "prefunding" the tax relief so they apply it at the same time as your contribution goes in (with a lot of RAS schemes you have to wait a couple of months).

Just ask the pension scheme for a tax statement for last tax year and previous ones, that will show net and gross, and report the gross amount to HMRC. If anything's changed, tell them, otherwise they'll assume similar going forwards.

Da_Crojanz

So I spoke to HMRC and to be honest the person didn't really understand. She said she could work out the code if I sent her what I was paying this year and I sent over 159.86 x 12 which comes to 1918, then she used this to change my tax code. My tax code has now changed to S1286L but this will only lead to an increase of around £28 per month.

I'm assuming this new problem is because I should have said the net amount not the gross amount? Or does S1286L sound about right? 

[Deleted User]

Where do you get £28 per month from. 

Your tax code has increased by 170 points. 

You can now earn an additional 1700 before paying tax.
42% of 1700 is £714. That’s £59.50 per month. 

You did give them the net amount.

Can’t work out why it has gone up by 170 though.