How to tell Revenue I'm paying into a pension

Hi all. First time to post here, and am hoping somebody will help.

Here's my situation:
- I was made redundant from a previous role back in September 2014. I'd been paying into an occupational pension there for approx. 16 years. That's all still sitting in the same place - I've never done anything about it.

- I spent most of the time since then just scraping by - freelancing for a while, then in unsteady and relatively low-pay employment. Wasn't in a position during that time to make any payments into a pension scheme at all.

- Recently started a public sector job, and so am a member of the new Single Pension Scheme there, though starting off from square one.

- I still have a small other income from a freelance job I've done for the past few years (approx. €2,000 per year).

- My plan is to take this €2,000 each year and throw it straight into a pension fund as well. It'll have to be either the previous one or a new one, since the Single Pension Scheme doesn't currently allow AVCs.

- So, I want to declare to Revenue that I make this additional €2,000 a year, but also want to tell them I'm putting it into a pension fund, so as to avoid income tax liability on it (I understand I'll still be hit for PRSI and USC).

- How best to do this? On the My Account thing on the Revenue site, I can see where to declare extra income all right....but I don't see anywhere to declare money paid into a pension fund. Am I just overlooking something?

Thanks in advance for any advice that might be about to follow.....!

Be careful.

Can you be a member of an occupational pension scheme and a personal private scheme at the same time?

In relation to your freelance income, you could establish a Personal Pension or PRSA, but you are limited in contribution terms to a % of the €2,000 (15% to 40% depending on age).But you could not invest all of the €2,000.
Whilst you cannot directly invest AVC’s through the Public Sector scheme you could establish a “stand alone PRSA AVC”. Again your total contribution is limited to a % of your Public Sector salary , as above. If you do establish a PRSA AVC, then you won’t get tax relief at source, but rather will likely have to make a tax return and declare the AVC.

Thanks for the replies. As you can probably tell, this is all pretty new to me. And maybe I'm naïve enough to think it should be straightforward, when the reality is that it's anything but.

On the points raised above:
@Protocol - yes, I believe so. Here's what the Public Sector Single Pension Scheme booklet says on that topic -

The option to purchase additional retirement benefits within the Single Scheme is not available at the moment. However, depending on your circumstances, you may be able to make additional voluntary contributions to separate Revenue-approved pension arrangements (e.g. an AVC Personal Retirement Savings Account or a trade union-affiliated AVC Scheme) if you wish to independently increase your retirement benefits outside of the Single Scheme.

@Conan - I'm 45 years old. Maximum pension contribution I'm allowed is 25% of income. But I'd have thought this is 25% of TOTAL income? For instance, if I've €2k 'on the side' and a starting salary of €30k, for a total income of €32k, I'd have been entitled to tax relief for any pensions payments up to €8k total?

As I said, maybe I'm naïve...and maybe that 'maybe' is becoming 'probably'....!

Wexman72 said:

I'm 45 years old. Maximum pension contribution I'm allowed is 25% of income. But I'd have thought this is 25% of TOTAL income? For instance, if I've €2k 'on the side' and a starting salary of €30k, for a total income of €32k, I'd have been entitled to tax relief for any pensions payments up to €8k total?

As I said, maybe I'm naïve...and maybe that 'maybe' is becoming 'probably'....!

Click to expand...

You are entitled to total tax relief on up to €8k of pension contributions but unfortunately, I don't think you do it all in the one pension product. You can get relief for €7.5k in an AVC or PRSA AVC and relief for €500 through an RAC or a PRSA.

Hi again all. Just to point out that while I might be entitled to total tax relief up to €8k on pensions, I don't think I'd actually be putting anything near that into it. But anyway, I'm still stuck on my original question. If I do pay something into a pension outside of the Public Sector one, how exactly do I let Revenue know this?

Am I overlooking something on the 'My Account' online, or is there another procedure altogether?

The pension company will send you a cert, which you submit to Revenue.

Thanks. That's really just the answer I was looking for in the first place!