Contribute to a Personal Pension 2023-24 to reduce tax payable for 23/24 tax year?

ISky11

Retired 6 years ago but work Self Employed. Just keeping my hand in.
For the 1st time my earnings have strayed into the Higher Tax bracket by £3k. Normally I just pay to 20% tax on these earnings when I complete my Tax Return, which I'm trying to fill in now.

Can I contribute to a Personal Pension now - but for the 2023-24 tax year - so I can reduce my tax bill so I'm only paying 20% tax rate I.E paying in £3k to a new Personal Pension Pot?

Apologies if this has not been explained well.

El_Torro

Unfortunately no, you can't do that. Any contributions you make now will be for the 2024/2025 tax year.

Ciprico

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Are there any expenses you can claim for last year, ie renting a room for your office if you work from home, or buying a laptop, or maybe travel expenses....

norsefox

Ciprico said:

..
Are there any expenses you can claim for last year, ie renting a room for your office if you work from home, or buying a laptop, or maybe travel expenses....

You can 'claim' for limited and appropriate expenses actually realised, but you should be doing that anyway, irrespective of your marginal tax position.  It's not possible to incur allowable expenses now and backdate them to a previous year.

You can backdate charitable contributions, but that wouldn't improve your net position, unless you have/will make charitable contributions in 2024/2025 that you have/were going to make anyway.

I appreciate it's late and you know now anyway, but this is one reason why it's sensible to keep a close tab on your income/expense during the particularly tax year.