Trying to understand how much to pay into private pension - getting confused

Albermarle

Thanks for this - I have not had to consider this previously and think i got confused having read about previously unused pension allowances being carried over.

This is a very common misunderstanding. You have an Annual Allowance which is the maximum you can add to a pension in any one tax year ( included your contributions + employer contributions + tax relief) . This was £40K but has been  increased to £60K. If you do not use all this allowance you can carry forward up to 3 years unused allowances .

However you can only ever get tax relief on pension contributions in the current tax year. So effectively in the large majority of cases, you can only take advantage of the carry forward, if you have a pretty high salary and can make a large contribution.