Guidance

Pension schemes newsletter 131 – July 2021

Published 30 July 2021

1. Relief at source

1.1 Relief at source – Annual return of information for the tax year 2020 to 2021

The deadline for submitting your annual return of information and APSS590 declaration for 2020 to 2021 to HMRC has passed. However, there are still returns outstanding from scheme administrators who’ve submitted interim repayment claims for 2021 to 2022. If a 2020 to 2021 annual return of information was due for your scheme and this is still outstanding, any subsequent interim repayments will be withheld until we receive both the outstanding return and APSS590 declaration.

We want to remind pension scheme administrators that it’s important to use the right naming convention when submitting an annual return of information for 2020 to 2021. Using the wrong references on either the file name or within the annual return itself, means our systems will reject your submission and you’ll have to resubmit the return.

You can find details of how you should name your files in:

• the 2019 version of the relief at source spreadsheet
• the 2019 version of the electronic flat text file specifications

1.2 Relief at source and National Insurance number applications

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) have launched a new National Insurance number application digital service which allows individuals to apply directly for a National Insurance number.

The DWP have also opened their face to face service for those who may still need to attend an office to have their identity verified. All applications should be made online initially and applicants will be advised if they need to book a face to face appointment.

Demand is currently high for the service and applications can take up to 16 weeks to be processed.

In the meantime, if your relief at source repayment claims include individuals who are still waiting for their National Insurance number application to be processed you should continue to follow the guidance in Pension Schemes Newsletter 120

2. Managing Pension Schemes service

2.1 Retirement annuity contracts (RACs) and deferred annuity contracts (DACs)

In Pension Schemes Newsletter 130 we told you we’d be introducing a feature for pension scheme administrators to declare themselves as scheme administrators for RACs and DACs on the Managing Pension Schemes service in mid-August.

We can now tell you that the date this feature will become available is 16 August 2021. From this date you’ll no longer be able to declare as scheme administrator for a RAC or DAC on the Pension Schemes Online service. To declare as scheme administrator for a RAC or DAC on the Managing Pension Schemes service, you will need to register as a new scheme administrator or enrol as an existing scheme administrator on the service. You can find more information on this in the guidance Register as a pension scheme administrator and Enrolling on the Pension scheme service.

2.2 Amending an Accounting for Tax (AFT) return

Since our latest release on the Managing Pensions Schemes service on 19 July 2021, scheme administrators will no longer have to contact us to balance their account when making an amendment to an AFT that reduces the overall amount due.

We’ve updated our GOV.UK guidance Submit an Accounting for Tax (AFT) return using the Managing Pension Schemes service to reflect this change.

2.3 User research

Thank you to everyone who has helped us so far with our user research for the Managing Pension Schemes service. Your feedback has helped us with the development of new features that will become available in future releases. These are:

• add schemes from the Pension Schemes Online service to the Managing Pension Schemes service
• add RAC and DAC schemes from the Pension Schemes Online service to the Managing Pension Scheme service

We still need your help to test these new features. If you can help us, email pensions.administration@hmrc.gov.uk, using ‘user research’ in the subject line.

This is your chance to give feedback and to help inform the future design and development of the service.

3. Annual allowance

3.1 Pension savings statements for tax year 2020 to 2021

This is to remind scheme administrators that by 6 October 2021 you must issue annual allowance pension savings statements for tax year 2020 to 2021 to your scheme members who made pension savings of more than the annual allowance to your pension scheme.

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

An annual allowance charge will be due where a member exceeds the annual allowance (and/or money purchase annual allowance) across all pension schemes and does not have sufficient unused annual allowance to carry forward from previous tax years.

3.2 Declaring the annual allowance charge on the Self Assessment tax return

Please remind your members who have exceeded the annual allowance for 2020 to 2021 and do not have sufficient unused annual allowance to carry forward to cover the excess, that it’s important they declare this on their Self Assessment tax return. They must declare the total amount that they’ve exceeded their annual allowance by for 2020 to 2021 irrespective of who’s paying it.

Members must complete box 10 on page Ai4 of the supplementary SA101 Self Assessment additional information with the total amount that they exceeded their annual allowance by (and this includes members who’ve exceeded their money purchase annual allowance).

If your pension scheme is paying some or all of their annual allowance charge, your member should:

• enter the amount you, as scheme administrator, are paying on their behalf at box 11 on page Ai4 of the SA101 - if they do not do this, we’ll ask your member to pay that amount
• put the pension scheme tax reference number in box 12 on page Ai4 of the SA101

The deadline for your members to submit their Self Assessment return for 2020 to 2021 (and supplementary pages) is 31 January 2022.

Your members can find more information about the different types of annual allowance and carrying forward unused annual allowance in tax on your private pension contributions.

Your members can use our Pensions Annual Allowance Calculator to check whether they need to declare and pay an annual allowance tax charge, even if they have not received a pension savings statement.

And there’s full guidance on how to fill in the SA101 in [HS345 Pension savings - tax charges 2021](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pensions-tax-charges-on-any-excess-over-the-lifetime-allowance-annual-allowance-special-annual-allowance-and-on-unauthorised-payments-hs345-self/hs345-pension-savings-tax-charges-2021

4. Non-taxable payments following a member’s death and Real Time Information (RTI) reporting

In Pensions Schemes Newsletter 129 we announced that the regulations The Pension (Non-Taxable Payments Following Death)(Real Time Information) Regulations 2021 had been made and laid. The changes take effect from 6 April 2022.

We’ve since been asked to clarify the reporting requirement for a charity lump sum death benefit. Regulation 3 “Relevant payments”, as drafted, does not exclude the reporting of charity lump sum death benefits through RTI. We can confirm that this was an oversight when drafting the legislation, and pension scheme administrators do not need to report charity lump sum death benefits through RTI. The regulations will be amended at the earliest opportunity.

5. Pension flexibility statistics

The release of Pension flexibility statistics has been discontinued as a quarterly publication and will now be published annually in September.

You can find more information about this at HMRC’s Programme for reducing and consolidating published official statistics content.

We will however, continue to publish information on the tax repayments quarterly in our Pension schemes newsletters.

HMRC can now give more information on the number of tax repayment claim forms processed for pension flexibility payments.

From 1 April 2021 to 30 June 2021 we processed:

• P55 = 6,907 forms
• P53Z = 1,970 forms
• P50Z = 887 forms

Total value repaid: £33,033,966

The tax repayment figures for the period 1 July 2021 to 30 September 2021 will be published in Pensions schemes newsletter October 2022.

6. Qualifying Recognised Overseas Pension Schemes (QROPS) transfer statistics

The QROPS statistics have been discontinued as a separate publication and information on the annual number of transfers and values will now be included in our Pension schemes newsletters.

The number of transfers in to QROPS has fallen to 3,000 in 2020 to 2021, down from 4,400 in 2019 to 2020. The total value of these transfers was £416m down from £550m in the previous year.

Year	Number of Transfers	Total Value of Transfers
2006 to 2007	2,500	£120,000,000
2007 to 2008	5,700	£350,000,000
2008 to 2009	6,100	£360,000,000
2009 to 2010	6,700	£460,000,000
2010 to 2011	12,800	£1,360,000,000
2011 to 2012	16,400	£1,040,000,000
2012 to 2013	13,400	£1,000,000,000
2013 to 2014	11,300	£860,000,000
2014 to 2015	20,100	£1,760,000,000
2015 to 2016	13,700	£1,500,000,000
2016 to 2017	9,700	£1,220,000,000
2017 to 2018	4,700	£740,000,000
2018 to 2019	5,000	£640,000,000
2019 to 2020	4,400	£550,000,000
2020 to 2021	3,000	£416,000,000

The figures for 2021 to 2022 will be published in Pensions schemes newsletter July 2022.