Boost State Pension by Plugging Gaps in National Insurance

Boost State Pension by Plugging Gaps in National Insurance

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IMPORTANT: the video mentions the original deadline in April 2023. This has now been extended to 5th April 2025.

Do you have gaps in your National Insurance record? If so, it could mean that you could get a lower State Pension when you reach state retirement age, particularly if you are aged between approximately 45 and 70 at the moment. Generally speaking, you need 10 years of contributions for a basic state pension and around 30 to 35 years for a full state pension. It does vary by circumstance though and, even with gaps, some people might have enough qualifying years for the full state pension already.

Urgently Check Whether You Have National Insurance Gaps

Our advice is to urgently check whether you do have any gaps in your National Insurance record. If so, in many cases it would be wise to make some one-off payments to plug any gaps for the years 2006 to 2016. However, there is limited time to do so despite the deadline for this opportunity having been extended from early April to the end of July 2023 [UPDATE: This has now been extended again to 5th April 2025]. Thereafter, the chance to fix all 11 years from 2006 to 2016 will be gone forever. Read more

Help for Auto Enrolment

Professional, Affordable Help with Auto Enrolment

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Help for Auto Enrolment

Good news – one less burden for Employers!

If you are an employer, you’ll no doubt know about the new Automatic Enrolment scheme that was recently imposed on UK businesses. For most employers, it’s yet another unwelcome administrative burden. However, it’s not all bad news; in fact, Taxfile has some excellent news to share with you …

As you probably know, compliance with the new Automatic Enrolment scheme is not optional. Virtually every UK employer has to choose and commit to a Workplace Pension Scheme, liaise with every employee, administer all the paperwork and comply with the various rules, regulations and deadlines. It’s a massive administrative burden. However, the good news is that Taxfile can handle it all for you! Our prices are incredibly affordable too. So — it’s a no-brainer!

Let Taxfile handle your Auto Enrolment for you

For a simple, affordable fee, Taxfile can help your company or organisation with:

  • Monitoring, compliance and administration of your Auto Enrolment duties. We’ll handle it all, on your behalf;
  • Registering your compliance with The Pensions Regulator at the correct intervals;
  • Integrating Auto Enrolment pension payments into your company payroll (if we handle payroll for you), so the right level of pension contributions, tax and NI is paid in relation to salaries;
  • If you and all your employees are eligible and want to opt out of Auto Enrolment, we’ll help you accomplish that too, within the rules.
  • If you’ve missed your ‘staging date’ and want to minimise any penalty and get back on track, we can also help with that.

With Taxfile handling it all for you, you can get on with

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The Chancellor’s Budget, March 2014

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The Chancellor, George Osborne, has now presented his March 2014 Budget to Parliament. There was lots of talk about the economy, growth forecasts, supporting UK businesses and employment – as well as some obvious political spin bearing in mind the European and General Elections are just around the corner – however we thought we’d concentrate on the most important changes, mainly in relation to tax itself as that’s what is going to affect Taxfile customers and readers the most. So here is our snapshot:

For individuals:

  • The threshold before earnings are subject to income tax (the ‘tax-free personal allowance’) is set to rise to £10,500;
  • The higher rate of tax will kick in for earnings above £41,865 from April 2014, rising again to £42,285 in 2015;
  • The first part of the ‘Help to Buy’ equity loan scheme for those aspiring to buy a new home is to be extended until 2020 (previously 2016);
  • The Stamp Duty on homes worth over £500k is to increase to 15% for those which are bought by companies;
  • Inheritance tax will be scrapped for members of the emergency services who “give their lives protecting us”;
  • Cash and Shares ISAs will be merged into a single New ISA (“NISA”). The annual tax-free limit for the NISA will be £15k (£4k for junior equivalent) from 1 July 2014.
  • From April 2015, pensioners will no longer be forced to buy an annuity with their pension fund. They will now be able to cash in as much or as little as they want to from their pension pot.
  • From June 2014, the amount people will be able to invest into Premium Bonds will increase to £40k (from £30k). From 2015 this will rise again to Read more

(Time Sensitive): Tax Year End Changes for Pension Allowances

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The start of the new Tax Year on 6 April 2014 – just 6½ weeks away at time of writing – will see two very important changes in relation to pensions allowances.

The first change will affect the ‘Annual Allowance’ (or ‘AA’) which is the annual limit on pension savings attracting tax relief. This limit will be reduced from £50k to £40k (having been as high as £255k back in 2010/11) and includes contributions made by anyone into your pension whether that’s you or your employer. Should your pension savings be greater than this amount then you will have to pay a tax charge and include such information on your Self Assessment tax return. A calculator is available to work out whether you have any unused annual allowance available, this being particularly useful because you are eligible to carry forwards any unused allowance if it exists from the 3 previous tax years. If present the unused allowance can be used to offset against any tax charge.

The second change will affect the ‘Lifetime Allowance‘ (or ‘LTA’) which is the amount payable from a private and/or work pension scheme (excludes State pension) before tax also becomes payable. Having already recently been cut from £1.8 million the LTA is currently set at £1.5 million but will be reduced to £1.25 million from 6 April 2014. The LTA is only applied to pension savings when you actually take your pension benefits, or at certain key events such as reaching the age of 75. Other examples of applicable key events are explained here. Read more

Pension Contributions and Tax Relief

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Do I get tax relief on my pension contributions? This is something we hear a lot from our clients.
The answer is yes, you do get tax relief on pension contributions, being a good way to save for retirement.
The way you get tax relief on pension contributions depends on whether you pay into a company (known as Occupational scheme), public service or personal pension scheme.
•Company or public service pension schemes
Usually your employer takes the pension contributions from your pay before deducting tax (but not National Insurance contributions). You only pay tax on what’s left. So whether you pay tax at basic or higher rate you get the full relief straightaway.
•Personal Pensions
You pay Income Tax on your earnings before any pension contribution, but the pension payer claims tax back from the government at the basic rate of 20 per cent. In practice, this means that for every £80 you pay into your pension, you end up with £100 in your pension pot.
If you are a higher rate taxpayer, you can claim the difference through your Self-Assessment tax return.
•Retirement annuities
Unlike personal pension providers, most retirement annuity providers – personal pension schemes set up before July 1988 – don’t offer a ‘relief at source’ scheme whereby they claim back tax at the basic rate. Instead you’ll need to claim the tax relief you’re due through your tax return or by getting in touch with your local Tax Office.
If you receive an age-related Personal Allowance or Married Couple’s Allowance HMRC will subtract the amount you contribute plus the basic rate tax from your total income and use the reduced figure to work out the value of your allowances. This may have the effect of increasing these allowances if your income was above the relevant ‘income limit’ that applies.
If you don’t pay tax you can still pay into a personal pension scheme and benefit from basic rate tax relief (20 per cent) on the first £2,880 a year you put in. In practice this means that if you pay £2,880 the government will top up your contribution to make it £3,600.
There is no tax relief for contributions above this amount.
You can put money into someone else’s personal pension – like your husband, wife, civil partner, child or grandchild’s. They’ll get tax relief added to it at the basic rate, but this won’t affect your own tax bill. If they’ve got no income, you can pay in up to £2,880 a year – which becomes £3,600 with tax relief.
If the pension scheme rules allow it you may also be able to put money into someone else’s company scheme. You’ll not get tax relief on your contribution but the other person can get relief either through their tax return or by making a claim to HMRC by telephone or letter.
You can save as much as you like into any number and type of registered pension schemes and get tax relief on contributions of up to 100 per cent of your earnings (salary and other earned income) each year, provided you paid the contribution before age 75. But the amount you save each year toward a pension is subject to an ‘annual allowance’.
For the tax year 2008-09 the annual allowance is £235,000. You pay tax at 40 per cent on any contributions you make that are above the annual allowance
Also, when your pension matures you can take up to 25 per cent of it as a tax-free lump sum, provided your pension scheme rules allow it, you are under 75 and your total savings are within the ‘lifetime allowance’ for the year in which you take your benefit. For the tax year 2008-09 this is £1.65 million.
It is also important to know that you can usually only get your pension contributions refunded if you withdraw from a company scheme within two years of starting payments.
Certain events might shorten the time limit. Tax is deducted at 20 per cent for refunds of up to £10,800 and at 40 per cent on any excess above this. The scheme administrator deducts the tax before making the refund.
Tax experts argue that basic rate taxpayers are better off saving in an ISA rather than paying in a pension contribution scheme at least until they become 40% tax payers and they get a bigger tax relief.
In order to have a happy and care free retirement come to see Taxfile‘s tax agents in South London and Exeter to seek help if you are still unsure of the matter.

Lump sums, redundancy & compensation payments

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When dealing with lump sums, redundancy and compensation payments great care needs to be exercised. The reason behind this is that this type of income will not necessarily be taxed as normal employment income.
Up to the first £30,000 of any compensation payment can be paid to you without deduction of tax if it is made in connection with the termination of your employment. This also applies to statutory redundancy payments. This tax exemption applies whether the payment is made as a result of an unfair dismissal claim or for breach of contract.
In order to qualify for compensation for loss of office relief, strict criteria must be met.
For instance, if your contract of employment gave you a right to compensation on ceasing to be employed or payment in lieu of notice (i.e. the employer pays in lieu of notice instead of the employee working the notice period), then the lump sum you receive will be taxable under PAYE scheme, regardless of the amount.
Also, even if the contract says nothing about pay in lieu of notice but there is an expectation of payment because it has been routinely paid to others, that constitutes an implied contractual term and the payment will still be liable to tax and NICs.
HMRC often challenges this aspect, trying to prove that the payments were contractual in nature therefore they need to be fully taxed.
Very important to remember is that the limit of £30,000 relief relates to each employment but employments with employers under common control only count once. If a payment was received in the previous fiscal year for the same employment but the relief was not used, than the balance can be claimed against any relevant payments in a subsequent year.
Some employees with redundancy payments that exceed £30,000 choose to pay some or all of the excess into their approved occupational pension scheme. As long as the payment is within the scheme’s rules, it has no liability for tax or NICs.
As different rules apply to different lump sum payments connected with an employment it is very important to seek advice from professionals like Taxfile‘s tax accountants in South London and Exeter. They will make sure that your circumstances have been carefully considered before submitting your tax return to HMRC.