Alan Webb

You will enter £72k on your 23-24 tax return and do not make any amendments to previous years. You might also want to add a note in the additional information section of the return to say that you are using the full annual allowance for 23-24 plus unused relief from the previous three years of 3 c £4k (though that is not absolutely necessary). Tax relief will be given on the £72k at your higher rate(s) for 23-24. For example, If excluding the pension contributions you are liable on (say) : - £100k @ 45% for 23-24 then you will get tax relief on £72k @ 45% [reduction in liability would be £18k - ie £72k x (45-20)%] - £50k @ 45% for 23-24 then you will get tax relief on £50k @ 45% & £22k @ 40% [reduction in liability would be £16.9k - ie £50k x (45-20)% + £22k x (40-20)%]

Did you have a pension fund in the previous three years or is the new SIPP you are proposing the first time that you have been a member of a pension scheme? If the new SIPP is the first/only scheme that you have been a member of then: - You will not have unused relief to bring forward from 20-21 to 22-23. - Your contribution for 23-24 would be limited to £60k (you pay £48k to the SIPP manager and they claim the basic rate tax relief of £12k from HMRC and add that to the SIPP pot). - In your tax return you would show grossed up pension contributions of £60k and the tax computation will give you the additional higher rate tax relief net of the 20% already claimed by the SIPP manager.

To answer your last point, you cannot carry forward from 19-20 now. For some reason the earlier HMRC reply included reference to Overpayment Relief which is a different thing altogether and based on your OP not relevant to you. Overpayment relief in this case would be a claim where you made returns for earlier years but omitted to include a claim for pension contributions paid in those years. So if you had actually paid £4k grossed up pension contributions in each year 19-20 to 22-23 but not included a claim for those contributions in the tax returns and were due higher rate relief on them for each year you would: - make overpayment relief claims for 19-20 to 21-22 with the deadline to do so for the earliest year being 5/4/24; and - amend your 22-23 return to make the necessary claim. Based on the OP that is not what has happened. - You did not pay any pension contributions in the earlier years and now wish to make a catch up contribution for unused relief from the earlier years. - For that you can only go back to 20-21 and bring forward unused relief to cover a payment in excess of the current year Pension Annual Allowance. - To make use of the unused relief from 20-21 you would need to pay contributions >£64k (gross) before 5/4/24 or the unused relief from 20-21 is lost.

Ryan You might be overpaid, it rather depends where the T code was operated and how allowances were allocated between the two employers. It should come out in the was with the PAYE reconciliation that should be done by October, but you might want to check the figures sooner adding income from the two employments in the year together, taking off the personal allowance due (and any other relevant deductions), working out the tax and comparing that to total tax paid on the two employments. If you have other personal savings income (bank interest etc.,) don't forget to check whether any tax is due on that.

You do not amend previous years returns for payments made this year that use up unused reliefs brought forward. Brought forward is only available if you were a member of a pension scheme in a year, but did not pay any premiums. Assuming that you did have some fund already set up then you have £60k for 23-24 plus (on your OP) £4k for each year 20-21, 21-22 & 22-23. Assuming you have enough time to set up a payment and get it into the provider before 5/4/24 you would pay £57,600 (net) and claim relief for £72k in your 23-24 tax return

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