£60,000 a year pension cap

plantation_2

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81902845#Comment_81902845

Your company will need to be careful on how much they deduct from your salary to put into your pension as they are also governed by the minimum wage legislation which means they can't pay you zero (even if you ask them to). So you will need to see how much they will deduct from your salary and then potentially top up with a direct payment yourself to the pension plan

DRS1

You say your contributions are £151.75 (per week) but how are they paid? If you look at your pension scheme (maybe you have online access to it) does it show employee contributions of £151.75 pw and then a tax relief payment of £37.93 pw? If so the contributions are relief at source contributions. You are treated as having made the gross contribution of £189.68 pw or 9863.36 pa

That would need to come off the £35k. So you have headroom of £25136.64. That means you can make a relief at source contribution of £20109.31 (which would be grossed up to £25136.64). Don't rely on these figures you need to make sure £35k is your taxable earnings figure for the current tax year.

You don't ask a govt dept to make the contribution.

You can speak to payroll at your employer but of course they can only pay into the pension scheme whatever they would otherwise have paid you for the rest of the year. I am not sure they would even want to do that. But basically there is only March left this tax year so at most you are looking at £3k. The rest (probably all of it) has to come from your bank account.

You would then need to check your existing pension scheme will accept a lump sum contribution from you and treat it as a relief at source contribution. If not then you may want to set up your own personal pension scheme (SIPPs get a lot of comments on here but you can set a personal pension up with an insurer)

One final thought - if you make this pension contribution what are you going to live on?

gesdt50

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81902916#Comment_81902916

"If you look at your pension scheme (maybe you have online access to it) does it show employee contributions of £151.75 pw and then a tax relief payment of £37.93 pw? If so the contributions are relief at source contributions", - well the tax slip is detailed yet their is no words of relief anywhere on there only the pension amount for myself and ER's pension

MallyGirl

do you mean pay slip or something visible via online access to your pension

DRS1

By tax slip do you mean the payslip your employer gives you? That is not what I meant. Your pension scheme will have details of contributions received by it which I believe should say something like Employee Contributions, Tax Relief, Employer Contributions and Total Contributions. I am assuming that this information would be available to you if you logged on to your pension scheme's website and looked at your details (but obviously I don't know anything about your pension scheme and how it is set up or if you even have online access).

Dazed_and_C0nfused

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81903646#Comment_81903646

Has salary sacrifice ever been mentioned on connection with this pension?

DRS1

I was going to say that if it was salary sacrifice then surely the payslip would not show any employee contributions but I gather that sometimes that is not the case.

But @gesdt50 if you look at your payslip does it show a figure for gross pay then a deduction for the employee contributions and then a figure for taxable pay (which is the gross less the employee contributions)? If it does then that could mean it is salary sacrifice or something else called net pay.

gesdt50

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81903778#Comment_81903778

"But @gesdt50if you look at your payslip does it show a figure for gross pay then a deduction for the employee contributions and then a figure for taxable pay (which is the gross less the employee contributions)? If it does then that could mean it is salary sacrifice or something else called net pay."

It does show gross pay and then taxable pay right underneath that, both are the same amounts £2883.32

DRS1

That should mean the contributions are relief at source but hopefully someone who knows more about payslips than I do will be along to confirm that (or not).

I still think you should check on your pension's website to confirm the point and also to confirm that if you paid a lump sum contribution they would treat that as a relief at source contribution. Or maybe you will need to call the pension provider to confirm that point.

gesdt50

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81903985#Comment_81903985

Thanks for all the help. the figures quoted are from checking the Pension website; its showing my own contributions as Last employee contribution paid 21/08/2024 which is weird as they are taking contributions every month, yet is show ""Last employer contribution paid20/02/2026"

Maybe this is a some kind of glitch or human error

Am still no wiser though if I can contribute more to make up for the previous 2 years or even pay in from savings, also worried if I did pay in some from savings would that be taxable for 75% worth as pensions at basic rate to my understanding is the 1st 25% is tax free; these things do seem to get very technically detailed very fast? Thanks for any advice