Maximum contribution to civil service partnership scheme

Numbers2705

I am a civil servant likely to go in a VES at end of July. I am in the Civil Service Partnership DC scheme. I want to put the most I can into my pension from April to July for tax purposes. Is that 100% of my salary? I think I read somewhere that I have to be paid the equivalent of the minimum wage so I would need to calculate that and take it off the 100% figure to come up with a max percentage figure? My empire contributes 17.75% can I ignore that? Thanks

Marcon

Numbers2705 said:

I am a civil servant likely to go in a VES at end of July. I am in the Civil Service Partnership DC scheme. I want to put the most I can into my pension from April to July for tax purposes. Is that 100% of my salary? I think I read somewhere that I have to be paid the equivalent of the minimum wage so I would need to calculate that and take it off the 100% figure to come up with a max percentage figure? My empire contributes 17.75% can I ignore that? Thanks

Minimum wage restrictions only hit where salary sacrifice is concerned - and that doesn't apply here.

Maximum you can contribute and get tax relief is your earnings in the tax year in which you make the contribution (including tax relief, which will be added by the provider, so you'd contribute 80% of your earnings). Employer contributions need to be taken into account if they take you over the annual allowance of £60K when added to your grossed up personal contribution, unless you have scope for carry forward - which if you're only going to be working for a quarter of the relevant tax year seems unlikely.

Andy_L

" have to be paid the equivalent of the minimum wage" is only relevant if you are in a "salary sacrifice" scheme. As partnership is not a salary sacrifice scheme you don't need to worry about it. 

The employer contributions are also irrelevant.

However you won't receive tax relief on 100% of your salary, only the taxable part of it (ie any in excess of £12570).

Marcon

Andy_L said:

" have to be paid the equivalent of the minimum wage" is only relevant if you are in a "salary sacrifice" scheme. As partnership is not a salary sacrifice scheme you don't need to worry about it. 

The employer contributions are also irrelevant.

Employer contributions would be relevant in the (unlikely) event they take total contributions over the annual allowance.

Andy_L said:

However you won't receive tax relief on 100% of your salary, only the taxable part of it (ie any in excess of £12570).

Partnership is a relief at source scheme, so the whole personal contribution will be grossed up by basic rate tax.