Member contributions - tax relief and annual allowance

How much tax relief is given?

Tax relief is calculated in tax years. In any tax year tax relief is only given on gross contributions of up to £3,600 or 100% of relevant UK earnings, whichever is the higher. Looking at two examples, a member with no relevant UK earnings can get tax relief on a contribution of up to £3,600 whereas a member with relevant UK earnings of £25,000 can receive tax relief on contributions up to £25,000.

What are relevant UK earnings?

In short this is:

• employment income
• self-employed income
• income from patent rights
• certain redundancy payments
• earnings from overseas crown employment

This means that salary counts as relevant UK earnings. Investment income and dividends don't. This can have implications for controlling directors in deciding whether to make a pension contribution as a member or an employer contribution.

Redundancy payments

Only part of a redundancy payment counts as relevant UK earnings. A redundancy payment can be made up of the actual redundancy payment and other payments such as salary, payment in lieu of notice or holiday pay. Any part of a lump sum redundancy payment that comes from salary, payment in lieu of notice or holiday pay does count as relevant UK earnings. However, only the part of the actual redundancy payment over the tax-exempt threshold of £30,000 will be classed as employment income and therefore count as relevant UK earnings.

Let's look at an example where a member receives a lump sum payment on redundancy that's made up as follows:

• One months salary - £2,500
• One months salary in lieu of notice - £2,500
• Holiday pay - £750
• Redundancy payment - £31,250
• Total - £37,000

The first three items all count as relevant UK earnings. In addition to that, £1,250 of the redundancy payment is also classed as relevant UK earnings.

How is tax relief given?

This depends on what type of pension scheme we're talking about. There are three main methods and these are shown in the following table:

Further details of how higher rate tax relief is given can be found in Member contributions and higher rate tax relief.

HMRC Pensions Tax Manual - PTM044100: Contributions: tax relief for members

The annual allowance

The annual allowance is the total amount of contributions that can be paid into all pensions for a member before a tax charge applies. This allowance applies to all member contributions, employer contributions and contributions for the member paid by a third party, for example a grandparent.

It is the contributions paid during a period of time called a pension input period that are tested against the annual allowance.  Pension input periods are aligned with tax years. More details of pension input periods can be found in Pension input periods and pension input amounts.

For pension input periods ending in the current tax year tax year the annual allowance is £40,000. There's a tax charge on any contributions paid over the annual allowance in each year. This is called the annual allowance charge and is calculated at the member's marginal tax rate. Any potential tax charge is dealt with through the member's Self Assessment or by writing to HMRC.

To see if an annual allowance charge applies the total amount of contributions paid in the pension input period needs to be calculated.

It may be possible to use carry forward to reduce or remove the annual allowance charge.

It's important to remember that the annual allowance and tax relief work separately from one another. This means that it's possible for some contributions to receive tax relief but for an annual allowance tax charge to also apply. Let's take a look at how this works in the current tax year: 

• Member's relevant UK earnings - £60,000
• They work and are taxed in England
• Annual allowance - £40,000
• Member receives tax relief on gross contributions up to £60,000
• Annual allowance charge on (£60,000 - £40,000) = £20,000
• Only part of the excess contribution lies in the amount of taxable income taxed at 40%. So the amount of the charge will be:

£60,000 - £50,270 (£12,570¹ + £37,700) = £9,730 x 40% = £3,892

£50,270 -  £40,000 = £10,270 x 20% = £2,054

£  3,892 + £  2,054 = £5,946

Although the tax bands and rates of income tax in Scotland are different from the rest of the UK the calculation is the same but applied to the different bands/rates.  The rates and bands in Scotland are as follows:

¹ Assumes the individual is in receipt of the Standard UK personal allowance

² The personal allowance is reduced by £1 for every £2 earned over £100,000

To avoid double taxation, only contributions that receive tax relief count towards the annual allowance. If a member's UK relevant earnings are £70,000 and they make a gross contribution of £80,000 to their plan, they'll only receive tax relief on £70,000 and therefore would face a tax charge of 40% on the amount above the annual allowance, which in this case is £30,000.

If the MPAA or tapered annual allowance applied the tax charge would be even higher.

Further information 

• annual allowance
• money purchase annual allowance
• tapered annual allowance for high earners

Note

The information provided is based on our current understanding of the relevant legislation and regulations and may be subject to alteration as a result of changes in legislation or practice. Also it may not reflect the options available under a specific product which may not be as wide as legislations and regulations allow.

All references to taxation are based on our understanding of current taxation law and practice and may be affected by future changes in legislation and the individual circumstances of the investor.