Mr Smith

Hello, I wrote to HMRC back in March and then again in June to claim back additional higher rate tax relief on some one-off pension contributions I made into my company pension scheme. I could see the letter was received via the HMRC app which is very useful, however, I didn't receive a response apart from an update of "Done" on the app form tracker. I can see that my tax code (tax-free amount) has since changed and gone up but was interested to know if there is a default way of HMRC paying back higher rate tax relief as I thought this might be a cheque or back transfer? It doesn't really matter which, just interested to understand the process better for future reference. What is confusing is that I put in two different claims. After the first claim totalling £2k of one off contributions, my tax code changed and after the second more substantial claim of £8.8k I received an updated tax code where my tax code amount went down rather than up. I was expecting a rebate of £2,160 in total for these two claims based on 20% higher rate tax relief. The additional tax relief falls short of this based on the remaining tax year if indeed this is being refunded via tax code allowance change. Lastly, I hadn't notified HMRC of increases to my salary as well as pension contribution for circa 4 years as I'm a higher rate tax payer so I was expecting a rebate for this too but again wasn't sure if the default is via tax code change, cheque or bank transfer? I have tried to phone up but appreciate you are very busy and the lines always have a long wait time. Many thanks