Guidance

Pension schemes newsletter 132 — August 2021

Published 27 August 2021

1. Relief at source

1.1 Annual return of information — interim repayments

We explained in Pension schemes newsletter 131 the deadline for submitting the 2020 to 2021 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 2021 to 2022. 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.

It’s important that you successfully submit your annual return of information and the APSS590 declaration for 2020 to 2021 by 30 September 2021.

Successful submission by 30 September 2021 will make sure that we can give you the correct residency status for your members on your January 2022 notification of residency status report. You can then use this to give your members tax relief from 5 April 2022 and claim the right amount of repayment from HMRC.

1.2 Relief at source — APSS106 annual claims for tax year 2020 to 2021

We 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 2020 to 2021 to HMRC by 5 October 2021.

1.3 Reporting excess relief

In Pension schemes newsletter 122 we explained that for the 2021 to 2022 tax year you can continue to report excess relief claimed through your next interim claim, whether or not an annual claim for the year has been submitted.

We’ve extended this so that you can continue to report excess relief in this way for the 2022 to 2023 tax year as well, whilst the government considers responses to the pensions tax relief administration call to evidence.

We’ll provide further updates on this in future newsletters.

2. Annual allowance — pensions savings statements for tax year 2020 to 2021

In Pension Schemes Newsletter 131 we reminded scheme administrators that the deadline for issuing annual allowance pension savings statements for tax year 2020 to 2021 is 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
• where you have reason to believe that they’ve 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.

3. Pension scheme migration

3.1 Viewing pension schemes

In the Managing pension schemes service newsletter — August 2021, we told you that from 19 October 2021, scheme administrators will be able to view a list of pension schemes they need to migrate on to the Managing pension schemes service.

Only schemes with a status of ‘open’ on the pension schemes online service will be included in the list. At this point, it will be a ‘read only’ list.

3.2 Schemes without Pension Scheme Tax References (PSTRs)

We explained in Pension schemes newsletter 124, as part of the work we’re doing to prepare for migrating schemes to the Managing pension schemes service, we’re looking at pension schemes that were registered before 6 April 2006 that were provided with a superannuation fund (SF) reference number.

If you’re a scheme administrator for one or more of these pension schemes and do not currently have access to the scheme on the pensions schemes online service, so do not have the PSTR, email us at pensions.administration@hmrc.gov.uk with ‘SF reference pension schemes’ in the subject line. You should include a list of your superannuation fund reference numbers and scheme names in your email.

3.3 Wound up pension schemes

If you are the pension scheme administrator for a pension scheme that has wound up but you have not reported this to us, email us at pensions.administration@hmrc.gov.uk with ‘Wound up pension schemes’ in the subject line and the following details:

• the PSTR or SF reference number for each scheme
• your scheme administrator ID
• the date of wind up

All schemes with a status of ‘open’ will appear on your list of pension schemes for migration.

3.4 Multiple IDs

If you currently hold multiple scheme administrator or practitioner IDs, it’s important that you read about the actions you need to take in readiness for migration.

You will need to do this to make sure all your open pension schemes appear in your list of pension schemes for migration.