Accidental AVC overcontribution

SE1235

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I was doing my Form 11 today (I don't current have non-employment income, but I did at one point and have never deregistered), and noticed that I over-contributed to AVC in 2020.

When I signed up for my occupational pension, I specified 5% contribution (for employer matching) plus 15% AVC (the maximum, as I'm in my 30s).

That was fine, until my salary went over 115,000 last year. At that point payroll continued putting in the 5% contribution, and 15% AVC. The result is that I contributed just under 24,000 last year, whereas the pre-tax contribution limit for someone my age is 20% up to 115,000, ie 23,000. The difference between my Gross Pay and Pay for Income Tax on my Employment Detail Summary is 23,986, so I've underpaid tax for 2020.

My question is, beyond amending contribution percentages so that this doesn't happen again this year, how do I resolve this? Is it correct to simply fill in the correct amount (ie Gross Income - 23,000) under "Gross amount of taxable income for this employment/pension" on the form 11, and pay the difference, or do I need to do something else?
 
I am a bit rusty on AVC/pensions, over-contribution used to get kicked into the next tax year, I over contributed when the market was down in the past and claimed relief in future years tax pension allowance,
 
How can " over contribute " to an avc?

You may not get tax relief, but you can't over contribute unless you go beyond 2m ?
 
You may not get tax relief, but you can't over contribute unless you go beyond 2m ?\\

My concern is that I seem to have underpaid tax; "Pay for Income Tax" on my Employment Detail Summary is about a thousand euro lower than it should be, unless I'm missing something; there's a difference of about 24,000 between it and the Gross Pay.

As I understand it (I may have this wrong) the difference between "Pay for Income Tax" and "Gross Pay" is the pension contributions taken out at source, so it should be no more than 23,000 for someone in their 30s. So it looks like I was given too much tax relief via PAYE.
 
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Just remove the overpayment from the form 11. You can then add the overpayment to next year's form 11.
 
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I don’t think that would rectify the issue here.

The OP has overclaimed tax-relief which shouldn’t have happened.

He/she is allowed to claim 20% and had claimed, say, 21%.

I think the best way to amend it would be to input the figures correctly on the Form 11 but to only claim relief for the 20% in my example.

Then claim the balance against the subsequent year’s tax.
 
does this happen automatically or do you have to submit something?
 
Not a form 11 worker only form 12 PAYE worker. This happened by mistake last year to me. I over payed by 920 euro by mistake.

This was raised with My Query's for the full AVC amount and they put the balance forward to this years tax cert. It seems fairly simply and might do it again if the market values is very low or got spare cash sitting idle.

 
This is a common control issue with many Payroll Systems, it should not happen, but very often does. The quality Payroll software system, have inbuilt controls to check the Employees age, gross pay, and only allow the correct tax relief entitlement.

While you need to sort out, its also clear, you need to raise this with your employer, as this should have been spotted. Its a very basic control,totally absent in most payroll systems. Serial Employer offences in this area, can result in fines, penalties if there is a revenue audit