If you are in the process of completing your 2018-2019 self-assessment tax return over the next few days (deadline Friday 31 January), don’t forget to declare your pension contributions. Taxpayers routinely omit vital pensions data from their tax returns, forfeiting valuable tax relief or underpaying tax.
Higher-rate taxpayers are most likely to miss out. If you make regular contributions to a private pension, such as a stakeholder or personal plan, your provider will automatically claim basic-rate income-tax relief on your behalf, reducing the cost of contributing by 20%. However, higher-rate and additional-rate taxpayers are entitled to a further 20% and 25% respectively.
Shame that around 250,000 taxpayers make this mistake every year!