Pensions - Articles - HMRC admits it has not got a clue how many are facing fines


A new FOI response obtained by Royal London has revealed that HMRC simply do not know how many people they are fining each year over breaching rules relating to pension tax relief.

 Under current rules, most people are allowed to contribute up to £40,000 per year into a pension whilst benefiting from tax relief on their contributions. But since 2015, a reduced contribution limit has applied to people who start to take chunks of taxable cash from a pension using the new pension freedoms legislation. The limit, known as the Money Purchase Annual Allowance (MPAA) was originally £10,000 and was reduced to £4,000 in 2017. The idea of this reduced limit is to discourage people from ‘recycling’ money in and out of pensions, repeatedly benefiting from tax relief on the way in and tax-free cash on the way out.
 
 The way that the system works is that when an individual takes a chunk of taxable cash from one pension, their pension provider is meant to notify them that they have triggered the MPAA. The customer then has three months to notify their active pension scheme (eg their current workplace pension provider) that the lower limit applies. Failure to make this notification triggers a fixed penalty of £300 and then an escalating daily penalty of £60 a day.
 
 However, when asked by Royal London policy director Steve Webb how many people had triggered the charge since it came in, HMRC said that they did not know. They also said that it would be disproportionately expensive to find out, as it would take more than three days of work to obtain the information.
 
 Commenting, Steve Webb said: ‘It is truly astonishing that HMRC are presumably fining people for not complying with complex regulation but do not even bother to keep track of how many people they are fining. HMRC would take a dim view of any taxpayer who did not keep proper records, yet they appear not to have a clue about their own actions. If large numbers of people are being fined for non-compliance then we need to know so that more can be done to alert customers as to their responsibilities under the law. Even if HMRC have no historic information, they should, at the very least, start to keep records now”.
  

Back to Index


Similar News to this Story

94 percent view State Pension as an entitlement not benefit
Majority of adults aged 66+ say that Triple Lock is affordable and fair to older generations. Around one in seven rely on the State Pension to provide
Fair play off the pitch
Male players in the English Premier League earn an average of more than £3 million per year, while their female counterparts average around £47,000. T
Why Bitcoin matters to Pension Schemes
Back in November 2024, Cartwright Pension Trusts announced its role in facilitating the first-ever UK DB pension trust investment in Bitcoin. With the

Site Search

Exact   Any  

Latest Actuarial Jobs

Actuarial Login

Email
Password
 Jobseeker    Client
Reminder Logon

APA Sponsors

Actuarial Jobs & News Feeds

Jobs RSS News RSS

WikiActuary

Be the first to contribute to our definitive actuarial reference forum. Built by actuaries for actuaries.