Guidance

Pension schemes newsletter 123 – August 2020

Published 28 August 2020

1. Relief at source – annual returns of information for 2019 to 2020

1.1 Annual return of information – interim repayments

The deadline for submitting the 2019 to 2020 annual return of information and APSS590 declaration to HMRC has passed, but we know that there are still returns outstanding from scheme administrators who’ve submitted interim repayment claims for 2020 to 2021. Any subsequent interim repayments will be withheld, pending receipt of the outstanding information.

If you submit your annual return of information but your return fails processing, we’ll still deem this to be outstanding and will stop any subsequent interim repayments pending re-submission.

If your submission fails for a third time we’ll stop all future interim repayments to your scheme until a further re-submission is received and processed successfully.

1.2 Annual return of information – residency status reports

It’s important that you successfully submit your annual return of information and the APSS590 declaration for 2019 to 2020 by 30 September 2020.

Successful submission by 30 September 2020 will make sure that we can give you the correct residency status for your members on your January 2021 notification of residency status report. You can then use this to give your members tax relief from 5 April 2021 and claim the right amount of repayment from HMRC.

2. Relief at source – APSS106 annual claims for 2019 to 2020

We also want to remind scheme administrators of pension schemes operating relief at source that you must submit the APSS106 – registered pension schemes relief at source annual claim for 2019 to 2020 to HMRC by 5 October 2020.

3. Migration of pension schemes to the Managing pension schemes service

3.1 Multiple scheme administrator IDs

As we explained in the Managing pension schemes service newsletter – July 2020, scheme administrators with multiple administrator IDs will need to move their schemes under one administrator ID on the Pension Schemes Online service ahead of migration to the Managing pension schemes service.

To help you with this we can check:

• your scheme administrator IDs
• the schemes for which you are the administrator

You must send us a separate request for each of these and give the following information.

For a list of your scheme administrator IDs you must give your:

• scheme administrator name
• scheme administrator address, including postcode
• contact telephone number
• email address

You should email this information and put ‘List of my scheme administrator IDs’ in the subject line of your email to: pensions.businessdelivery@hmrc.gov.uk.

For a list of registered pension schemes attached to your scheme administrator ID you must give your:

• scheme administrator name
• scheme administrator ID
• contact telephone number
• email address

You should email this information and put ‘List of my registered pension schemes’ in the subject line of your email to: pensions.businessdelivery@hmrc.gov.uk.

We’ll validate the information you give and may ask you for more information before we provide any scheme or scheme administrator details.

You should use the information to check your records and tell us of any scheme administrator IDs or schemes that you no longer need.

Scheme administrators operating with more than one Corporation Tax Unique Taxpayer Reference (UTR) can have a scheme administrator ID for each Corporation Tax UTR held.

Once you have a list of your schemes and scheme administrator IDs and you have decided which scheme administrator ID you want to keep, you can contact us if you need help with moving your schemes under your chosen scheme administrator ID. Email and put ‘Help with scheme admin IDs’ in the subject line to: pensions.businessdelivery@hmrc.gov.uk.

We’re starting to write to scheme administrators with a large number of scheme administrator IDs to help with this process.

3.2 Multiple scheme practitioner IDs

Like scheme administrators, practitioners will only be able to use one practitioner ID for each Corporation Tax UTR or National Insurance number.

If you’re a pension scheme practitioner with one Corporation Tax UTR but multiple scheme practitioner IDs, you’ll also need to move your schemes under one practitioner ID on the Pension Schemes Online service ahead of pension scheme migration to the Managing pension schemes service.

To help you with this we can check:

• your scheme practitioner IDs
• the schemes for which you are the practitioner

You must send us a separate request for each of these and give the following information.

For a list of your scheme practitioner IDs you must give your:

• scheme practitioner name
• scheme practitioner address, including postcode
• contact telephone number
• email address

You should email this information and put ‘List of my scheme practitioner IDs’ in the subject line to: pensions.businessdelivery@hmrc.gov.uk.

For a list of registered pension schemes attached to your scheme practitioner ID you must give your:

• scheme practitioner name
• scheme practitioner ID
• contact telephone number
• email address

You should email this information and put ‘List of my registered pension schemes’ in the subject line to: pensions.businessdelivery@hmrc.gov.uk.

We’ll validate the information you provide and may ask you for more information before we give any scheme or scheme practitioner details.

You should use the information to check your records and tell us of any scheme practitioner IDs or schemes that you no longer need.

Scheme practitioners operating with more than one Corporation Tax UTR can have a scheme practitioner ID for each Corporation Tax UTR held.

Once you have a list of your schemes and scheme practitioner IDs and you have decided which scheme practitioner ID you want to keep, you can contact us if you need help with moving your schemes under your chosen scheme practitioner ID. Email us, putting ‘Help with scheme practitioner IDs’ in the subject line to: pensions.businessdelivery@hmrc.gov.uk.

We’re starting to write to scheme practitioners with a large number of scheme practitioner IDs to help with this process.

3.3 Pension Scheme Accounting

As you may know, in readiness to migrate pension schemes to the Managing Pension Schemes service, we’ve started to look at pension scheme accounting.

We’re starting to write to scheme administrators with details of payments and charges that are unallocated, asking for more information.

Where payments are outstanding we’ll ask you to pay the outstanding amount. If you think you’ve already paid, we’ll ask you to give us details of the payment you made. We can then allocate your payment against the right charge.

If your payment is or was late, we may charge you penalties under Schedule 56 of Finance Act 2009 and you’ll have to pay interest on the late payment.

Where credits are unallocated we’ll ask for details of the associated charges so that we can allocate your payments correctly.

You can help us with this by making sure that all payments you make contain the relevant charge reference number. You can find more information about paying tax to HMRC in the guide pension scheme administrators: how to pay tax.

4. Annual allowance – pensions savings statements for 2019 to 2020

In Pension Schemes Newsletter 122 we reminded scheme administrators that the deadline for issuing annual allowance pension savings statements for tax year 2019 to 2020 is 6 October 2020.

You must issue annual allowance pension savings statements for tax year 2019 to 2020:

• to your scheme members who made pension savings of more than the annual allowance to your pension scheme
• where you have reason to believe that they have flexibly accessed their pension rights, their pension savings under money purchase (and where appropriate hybrid) arrangements under your scheme are more than £4,000

If a member exceeds their annual allowance (standard or tapered as applicable to the individual) or the money purchase annual allowance (or both) across all pension schemes and does not have sufficient unused annual allowance to carry forward from previous tax years, an annual allowance tax charge will be due.

You can find more information about this requirement in the Pensions Tax Manual – PTM167100.