Personal Pension tax relief

M

MaxGordon

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I am self-employed and have paid monthly pension contributions every month in 2020.

Can I back-date the contributions paid up until the end of October into the previous tax year?

I understand that this would not be allowed for members of occupational pension schemes.
 
MaxGordon said:
I am self-employed and have paid monthly pension contributions every month in 2020.

Can I back-date the contributions paid up until the end of October into the previous tax year?

I understand that this would not be allowed for members of occupational pension schemes.
Click to expand...

Yes...if I understand your question correctly.

Let’s say you’re 35 and you earn €115,000 a year.

If you have contributed €23,000 between 1 January 2020 and 31 October 2020, you could claim relief for the €23,000 against your 2019 income via your 2019 income tax return.

The 31 October date can be extended obviously for online filing/payment.

Employees can also claim relief for contributions made against prior year income, but I suspect the point you’re making is that employees will be getting relief at source via payroll for 2020 contributions made against 2020 income.

But if I as an employee still have unused headroom in terms of relief against 2019 income, I can do that via my 2019 tax return. I just send the trustees the right gross payment and claim the relief through the Form 11.
 
Thanks Gordon,

I very much appreciate your time in writing such a detailed reply.

I think that you have confirmed what I needed which is an achievement as in fairness, I hadn't state my question very clearly.

What I really wanted confirmed is that my monthly contributions can be carried back to the previous tax year - they don't have to be "once-off" or "special" contributions which I believe is terminology that really just applies to members of occupational pension plans.

Using actual figures, I think my personal limit for 2019 is 20% of €115k (i.e. €23,000).
I've been lobbing in €2k a month since January (i.e. 10 x €2k, so €20k in total).
From a cash-flow point of view, it would suit me just to do an additional €3k before the filing deadline (say end of Oct) to reach the max for 2019.
Is this ok?

Once again - BIG THANKS. I don't have a "like" function for some reason?
 
Ah, there must be a requirement of a minimum of 10 posts before I can "like" posts.........so I can now keep up my end of the bargain.

Thanks again. Clear, concise and authoritative.
 
Can I hijack to ask a related question. I'm aware the amount of tax relief changes with age e.g.:
40-4925%

50-5430%

What's the exact criteria here. For example if I turned 50 December 2019, can I claim 30% relief for the whole of 2019 or just on contributions made after December?
 
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