Tax credits & 100% pension contributions

Icequeen1

justwhat said:

Icequeen1 said:

You said you are unsure how it is entered on the renewal form - are you sure you are using in the right year? The renewal form is asking you to give your income for 22/23 tax year. If you don't know it yet, for example because you are self-employed and have not finalised your accounts, then you give an estimate and confirm the actual figure by 31 Jan 24. 

In your first post, you said the 19k was in this tax year - that isn't relevant for your renewal form and shouldn't be entered. As far as I am aware, there is no box asking you to estimate your income for the current tax year?

In other words, you should never need to estimate pension contributions when filling in the renewal form because you will have already made any pension contributions that can be deducted. 

I am SE, so earnings are estimated then finalized. The following years estimate is based on the previous year unless i update them otherwise.(this is how it has always worked for my Self employment). 

i need to estimate/consider 2023/2024 pension contributions , otherwise i will not be entitled to Tax credits.

So my aprox. income this year will be 24k with 100% pension contributions. Income for tax credit purposes will be near nil/negligible. At moment pension contributions deposited into pot in lump sums as well as from my pay. i may have to change this to lump sum monthly payments next year.

Its more complicated than that as i am PAYE/SE and have investment interest. 

Yes, i understand how S/E earnings work for tax credits. But you asked what to enter on the renewal form - the renewal form only asks for income for the tax year that has just ended. Even if it is an estimate, the pension contributions won't be because they will have already been made. 

You can then ring up and give a current year estimate, so yes you would need estimate your contributions to do that. 

My point was just that your posts suggested you wanted to know what figure to estimate for the current year and how to put that on the renewal form. You should not be putting your current year estimate on the renewal form - what you should be putting on is your estimated or actual income for the tax year 22/23 (which finished on 5 April 2023). For that figure, you know the pension contributions. 

The only time you would need to estimate pension contributions is if you want to phone HMRC separately and give them an up to date estimate for the current year. But that is not linked to the renewal form. 

justwhat

in my original post i was unsure how pension contributions were handled via renewal or how they were updated/informed.

Previous years i did not contribute to a pension.