End of year tax questions

You can do this by following these simple steps:

• Complete the personal contributions form.
• Complete the Direct Debit mandate form.

We need the personal contributions form and the Direct Debit mandate form completed and returned before we’re able to carry out our checks. Until we’ve completed our checks, we won’t be able to begin taking payments from you.

You can print, scan and send this to us at personalpayments@peoplespartnership.co.uk. You can also print and send this to us by post at Freepost PEOPLES PENSION. It’ll take around 10 working days to arrange your Direct Debit with your bank – we’ll write to you once it’s set up.

For more information about tax relief, and the amount you can save into your pension and receive tax relief on, follow the links below…

What’s tax relief?
What’s the annual allowance?  

You can pay as much as you like into your pension pot but there are limits to how much tax relief you can receive. The value of tax relief received will depend on your individual circumstances.

If you are under 75, you will receive tax relief on contributions up to 100% of your UK taxable earnings. If you have no UK earnings, you can still contribute and receive tax relief on contributions up to £3,600 gross.

You can contribute the equivalent of 100% of your earnings up to a maximum of your annual allowance. For most people the annual allowance for the 2025/26 tax year is £60,000, although you could be subject to a lower amount if:

• you’ve accessed any of your pension savings flexibly and so are subject to the money purchase annual allowance of £10,000
• your adjusted income is over £260,000 a year.

The maximum contribution could be in the form of regular payments, one-off lump sum or a combination of both. The limit includes the contributions paid into all of your pensions (if you have more than one), includes your personal contributions, tax relief and any contributions that are paid by your employer or third party.

You may be able to carry forward unused allowance from previous tax years (see Q&A below).

Yes, this is possible. Carry forward allows you to make use of any annual allowance you may not have used during the 3 previous tax years, provided that you have not triggered your money purchase annual allowance and were a member of a registered pension scheme for each tax year you carry forward unused allowance from.

You can use carry forward if you’re an active member currently building up pension savings; a deferred member with paid-up pension benefits; a pensioner member, in receipt of pension benefits from your pension scheme, or a pension credit member, where you have a share of your ex-partner’s pension scheme. Carry forward may be particularly useful if you’re looking to make large pension contributions.

To use carry forward, you must pay in more than the maximum amount you can pay in whilst still receiving tax relief. For most people this will be £60,000 for the current tax year. You can use any unused allowance in the current tax year (£60,000 in 2025/2026) and can then use unused annual allowances from the 3 previous tax years, starting with the tax year 3 years ago.

You can’t receive tax relief on contributions in excess of your earnings in the current tax year and you only receive tax relief over the basic rate to the extent that you’ve paid it.

You can use the pension annual allowance calculator on the government’s website to see how much you can carry forward. We recommend that you take financial advice before making a carry forward contribution.

If your employer is using the ‘net pay arrangement’ method where your contributions are taken from your pay before tax, you’ll get your full tax relief straightaway, if you pay income tax.

If your employer is using the ‘relief at source’ tax arrangement where your contributions are deducted after tax, we’ll automatically claim tax relief for you, adding the basic tax rate of 20% to your pension contributions. We can receive this payment for tax relief from HMRC up to 12 weeks after your contributions are made into your pension pot.

If you pay more than 20% in tax you will need to claim the extra tax relief directly from HMRC.  We cannot comment on how long it may take, though HMRC should be able to guide you.

If you’re unsure whether your contributions are deducted before or after tax, you can find this on your joiner information, or please contact your employer.

As it could take up to 12 weeks for HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) to pay us your tax relief, you may encounter a situation where a tax relief payment for one tax year is received in the next.

For example, tax relief for February and March 2025/2026 tax year may be received on or after 6 April 2026 which would be in the 2026/2027 tax year. So, you’d need to be aware that although this has been received in the new tax year, for HMRC purposes, and for calculating your total contributions for annual allowance purposes, it still applies to the previous tax year 2025/2026.

If your employer is using the ‘net pay arrangement’ method where your contributions are taken from your pay before tax, you’ll get your full tax relief straightaway if you are a tax payer, and you don’t need to do anything.

If your employer is using the tax ‘relief at source’ arrangement where your contributions are deducted after tax, we’ll automatically claim tax relief for you, adding the basic tax rate of 20% to your pension contributions. This is subject to you meeting all the conditions for tax relief to be granted. If you live in Scotland and you pay the Scottish starter rate of income tax at 19%, tax relief granted will be 20% and you won’t have to repay the difference. If you pay more than 20% above the basic rate in tax, then you need to claim back the extra tax relief directly from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC). See ‘How do I claim tax relief above basic rate on my contributions?’ below or visit HMRC’s website for more details.

For more about tax relief visit our webpage on pension tax.

If your pension contributions have been deducted from your net pay (after tax has been deducted) and you pay more than 20% tax, you can claim your tax back in 2 ways:

• self-assessment tax return
• call or write to HM Revenue & Customs if you don’t fill in a tax return.

If you’re an additional rate taxpayer (ie you earn over £125,140 per year and pay 45% tax on this portion), you can only claim your 25% extra via a self-assessment tax return.

HM Revenue & Customs will normally require higher earners to submit a self-assessment tax return as the only method for claiming their extra tax relief. If you’re unsure about whether you need to submit a self-assessment tax return, please contact HM Revenue & Customs.

If you have any queries on how to claim higher rate tax relief, see the government’s webpage on tax relief.

If you’re already registered for self-assessment, HM Revenue & Customs will send you a tax return to fill out each year.  If you haven’t registered for self-assessment, you’ll need to sign up first via the HMRC website which can take up to 20 working days. You’ll then be sent a letter that contains your unique taxpayer reference, which you use to enrol for the self-assessment online service. HMRC will then send you an activation code by post a few days later so you can sign into your online account and file your return.

You’ll need to ensure you have the following information to hand to complete your self-assessment:

• P60 or P45 form from your employer
• A recent payslip
• Your National Insurance number
• Your pension annual statement (you can view your latest statement in your Online Account)

You then need to complete the box ‘Payments to registered pension schemes where basic rate tax relief will be claimed by your pension provider (called relief at source). Enter the payments and basic rate tax’ where you enter the gross amount (what you’ve paid plus the basic rate relief you’ve already received). You don’t need to include your employers’ contributions and any contributions taken from your pay before it was taxed.

HMRC will tell you how much tax you’ll get back.

Don’t worry, you can write to your local tax office up to 4 years after the end of the tax year in which you made your contributions and reclaim your extra tax relief.