NHS Pension Members – Don’t forget to declare excesses from your 19/20 pension savings on your January Self Assessment return.

If you have exceeded your Annual Allowance for 19/20 and you don’t have sufficient unused annual allowance to carry forward to cover the excess, you must declare this on your Self Assessment tax return due by 31 January 2021 even if the pension scheme is paying the tax.

The Pension savings – tax charges (Self Assessment helpsheet HS345) has specific information on declaring the annual allowance charge on Self Assessment returns.

HMRC have a guide to paying and declaring the annual allowance charge. Information and guidance about annual allowance and carrying forward unused annual allowance which can also be found on GOV.UK and there is a calculator to check whether a member needs to declare and pay an annual allowance tax charge.

Bear in mind, only members that exceed the standard annual allowance of £40,000 will automatically be notified of this by their pension scheme (and those members the scheme administrator believes are subject to the money purchase annual allowance and have exceeded £4,000). Members who have exceeded their tapered annual allowance but not the standard AA will not be notified by their scheme but must still declare the excess on their tax return (unless covered by carry forward).

If you need help with this please contact the Robson Laidler Tax Team: taxteam@robson-laidler.co.uk

If you need wider assistance with your NHS Pension Scheme membership please contact Amanda Cowie, Robson Laidler Wealth: acowie@robson-laidler.co.uk