The MOD announced yesterday (16 Jan) on DefNet that the 2023 – 2024 Pension Savings Statements (PSSs) will not be issued until after 31 January 2025. As such it will be too late for members to include pension savings detail in their 2023/24 Self-Assessment Tax Returns (SATRs) before the filing deadline. You can read the full MOD announcement at this link.
You will only be sent a PSS if you have breached the Annual Allowance (AA) limit for the tax year in question, and even then you may not have a tax charge if you have sufficient carry forward from previous years to offset the breach.
The AA limit was increased from £40k to £60k on 6th April 2023 and, allowing for the relevant CPI increase, it is anticipated that fewer members than usual will breach the AA limit for the TY2023 – 2024.
It is important to complete your SATR before the filing deadline on 31st January 2025 to avoid a late return penalty and possible interest charges. As the pension savings detail will not be available in advance of the filing deadline, as per previous guidance, provisional figures should be entered into the SATR.
It is important to note that the guidance from HMRC is:
Members will not incur a penalty for incorrect provisional figures, however, there may be interest charged in cases where:
1. The actual figure is greater than the provisional figure provided, and
2. The member paid the tax charge themselves, rather than use Scheme Pays.
Because of this it is important not to underestimate the provisional figure.
If you anticipate that you may breach the AA limit you should calculate a provisional figure to the best of your ability. An example of how to do this can be found in your RPSS (if you received one) which shows how the TY2022 – 2023 Pension Input Amount (PIA) was arrived at. If you didn’t receive an RPSS, examples of PIA calculations are shown in any previously issued PSSs, and there is also an explanation of how PIAs are calculated in the AFPS Tax Booklet which is available at AFPS gov.uk website.
If you have already submitted your SATR with a provisional figure and believe it to be lower than it ought to be, you can revisit your SATR before 31st January 2025 and update the provisional figure in order to avoid interest charges.
Once you receive your PSS for TY2023-2024, we recommend that you update your return with the actual figure at the earliest opportunity.
The CPI rate to be applied at the start of the TY2023 – 2024 is 10.1%. You can use the ‘total value of your pension pot on 5th April 2023’ as the starting value for the 2023 – 2024 calculation (remembering to uplift it by 10.1%).
We recommend that you read the HMRC FAQs on how to deal with your SATR and PSS for the TY2023 – 2024, which you can find here
