Guidance

Countdown Bulletin 51 - January 2020

Published 16 January 2020

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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/countdown-bulletin-51-january-2020/countdown-bulletin-51-january-2020

Revised solution for allocating payments

Countdown Bulletin 50 told you about the proposed solution for automatically allocating payments received from pension schemes for individual members of their scheme where the bill was part paid.

HMRC cannot identify the individual scheme members the part payments were made for to allow us to continue to give a high level of service for the Scheme Reconciliation work. Pension Scheme Administrators will need to provide some additional information.

If you have part paid your bill or want to part pay your bill where you have either not paid or paid in full then you will need to identify the individual scheme members the payment is being made for.

A breakdown of the individual scheme members should be provided through Shared Workspace. We have provided a template alongside this bulletin that must be completed and uploaded to your eRoom.

On submission of your completed template an email must be sent to Customer Relationship Team to confirm this has been done with the Subject Heading ‘Countdown Bulletin 51 SFR Part Payment’.

Where you have fully paid and now wish to part pay you will be due a refund – complete payee name and address on the template.

Where you have not paid and now wish to part pay, send payment using BACS using the details shown below:

  • Sort code: 20 20 48
  • Account number: 30944793
  • Beneficiary details: SFR ENF and SCON (your SCON)

An immediate response to this data request will allow HMRC to allocate the payments and issue the final data cuts promptly.

If your scheme has fully paid and intend to keep that status tell us immediately through the Customer Relationship Team.

Use the Subject Heading ‘Countdown Bulletin 51 SFR Full Payment’ and we will prioritise these schemes.

The deadline for the action is 13 March 2020.

If we do not hear from you by the deadline:

  • where you have part paid the bill we will refund the money and you will need to give you payee details before any refund can be made

  • where you have fully paid the bill we will take action to allocate the payment to individual members

  • where you have not paid the bill we will take action to record GMP/CR liability for the members.

This additional action will impact on the original timeline HMRC published for the issue of the final data cuts. A revised data cut timeline will be published when the allocation timeline is understood.

Read Check scheme details using the Scheme Reconciliation Service for more information.

Earlier editions of the Countdown bulletins for pension scheme administrators are also available.

Contact details

For any general queries, contact the contracted out pensions helpline.

General queries about the Scheme Reconciliation Service should be made to the Customer Relationship Team at email: CRM.schemereconciliationservice@hmrc.gov.uk.

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