Pension Tax relief - Self Assessment help needed.

PCNhelpneededtoday

I fill in an annual self assessment tax return. 

In previous tax years my then employer paid my pension via salary sacrifice, so no need to provide pension details.

My new employer pays my pension contributions via 'relief at source'. I've self determined this as the deduction is shown in the deductions side of my payslip and at approx 80% of my intended pension contribution. (Thank you google  )

I am a higher rate tax payer (40%) and need to claim the tax relief for the remaining 20%. 

A couple of questions.

1. Am i right in that I enter the pensions contributions under the 'Payments to registered pension schemes (also known as PPR) where basic rate tax relief will be claimed by your pension provider (called 'relief at source'). Enter the payments and basic rate tax:' field on the self-assessment tax form?
2. The HMRC website help function states "You will have made a 'net' payment. You should enter the gross amount; which is, the amount you paid plus the tax relief.These amounts may be on any pension certificate or receipt you get from the administrator, or you can work it out by dividing the amount you actually paid by 80 and multiplying the result by 100"   should I use the amount deducted from my payslips with the 20% tax added or should I use the amount I've contributed to my pension plan (taken from the transaction history on the app) with the 20% added? The two figures are different as the pension contributions on the app are my intended % of income. 

Any help would be appreciated as i'd like to submit the return sooner rather than later but more importantly I wan't to get it right. 

Thank you in anticipation 

C

Albermarle

The two figures should be the same.

As per HMRC advice you do not add 20% to your contributions, you divide them by 0.8. ( or add 25%) 

PCNhelpneededtoday

Hi @Albermarle, 

Thanks for the quick reply. 

So the figures are different but I think i've made sense of it now

As an example: July salary deduction = £1192.51          August pension contribution £1490.64 

Looks like the pension contribution figure includes the 20% tax relief as when you divide the salary deduction by 0.8 it tallies. 

So i can use the gross figure from my pension contributions or use the salary deductions and divide by 0.8 and get the same totals. 

Can you confirm that I've understood correctly. 

Thanks again. 

Albermarle

Yes that is correct.