Guidance

Relief at source pension schemes newsletter - September 2018

Published 13 September 2018

1. Annual return of information

a. Annual return of information for 2017 to 2018

As explained in Pension Schemes Newsletter 102 you must successfully submit your annual return of information by 30 September 2018 to make sure we can use the information about your members to provide you with your notification of residency status reports in January 2019.

You can find more information about completing and submitting your annual return of information to HMRC in our GOV.UK guide Send a relief at source annual information return. This guide includes links to the Electronic flat text file specification for relief at source returns and the pre-structured Excel spreadsheet.

If you realise that you’ve left some information out of your annual return or need to correct any information that you’ve submitted, please do not resubmit your whole return again. Instead you should email cni.enquiries@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk quoting your reference and sub reference with details of the missing or incorrect information and the tax year to which it relates.

If we need you to supply any additional information, we’ll contact you and explain your next steps.

b. Annual return of information for 2018 to 2019 onwards

From April 2019, you’ll only be able to submit your annual return of information using the Secure Data Exchange Service (SDES).

In Pension Schemes Newsletter 100 we explained that we’ll be making changes to the annual return of information for 2018 to 2019 onwards including adding, deleting and renaming some of the columns.

For information and to help you update your systems, we’ve included information about structuring your 2018 to 2019 annual return of information in Appendix 1 of this newsletter.

However, we know that some pension scheme administrators will not be able to make changes to their systems in time to submit their 2018 to 2019 annual return of information. To help with this, and for the 2018 to 2019 annual return of information only (due by 5 July 2019), you’ll have the option of submitting the new version of the annual return of information or the 2017 to 2018 version . For the 2019 to 2020 annual return of information onwards, the new version must be used by all pension scheme administrators operating relief at source.

c. Annual return of information declaration

The Registered Pension Schemes (Relief at Source)(Amendment) Regulations 2018 require scheme administrators submitting an annual return of information to also submit a declaration. In your declaration you must confirm that the information you have supplied on your annual return is true and complete to the best of your knowledge and belief. You must do this for your annual return of information for 2018 to 2019 and later tax years.

Your declaration will not be submitted through SDES with the rest of your information return, so you will not need to update your IT systems to include the declaration as part of your SDES submission. Instead we’ll provide you with a form to do this on and you can email this to us.

You must send a completed declaration for each of your annual returns, for example, if a P reference contains multiple sub files you must complete and send us a declaration for each sub file.

We’ll give you more information on this process, including the form and the email address that you should send these to, in future pension schemes newsletters.

2. Notification of residency status report for 2019 to 2020

a. Enrolling for SDES and revised residency report technical specifications

In January 2019 we’ll provide you with your notification of residency status report so that you can use the correct residency status for your members in 2019 to 2020. We’ll make your notification of residency status report available to you through the SDES.

So if you have not already done so, you’ll need to enroll for SDES to receive your report.

It’s important that you complete all of the steps for SDES enrolment by 30 November 2018 (including sending HMRC a File Transfer Schedule of the annual return of information files you intend to submit via SDES), otherwise we may not be able to send you a notification of residency status report in January 2019.

To help you when you access your notification of residency status report, we’re making some cosmetic amendments to the technical information for the notification of residency status report. If we have emailed you before with these, we’ll send you the revised version once this is ready. If you want to be added to this mailing list, please email pensions.businessdelivery@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk and put ‘Residency report technical specifications’ in the subject line of your email.

b. Welsh residency status

This is to remind you that in January 2019 we’ll also include the Welsh residency status on the notification of residency status report for your members who live in Wales. You’ll be able to identify these members because we’ll give them a ‘C’ on your notification of residency status report and you should use this status for relief at source from April 2019.

So from January 2019 your notification of residency status report will include:

• ‘S’ for Scottish residency status
• ‘C’ for Welsh residency status
• a blank field – for rest of UK residency status (resident in England and Northern Ireland)
• ‘U’ – HMRC has not been able to match the member to a National Insurance number

For 2019 to 2020 only, if you’re not able to accept and operate the C status from the notification of residency status report you can default to the rest of UK.

3. Members without a valid National Insurance (NI) number

Regulation 4(2) of the Registered Pension Schemes (Relief at Source) Regulations 2005 - SI 2005/3448 states that when a member joins a scheme and before they make their first RAS contribution, they or a representative will have to provide the scheme administrator with some basic personal information including the member’s:

• full name
• permanent residential address (including postcode if resident in the UK)
• date of birth
• NI number

You can find more information about what a valid NI number looks like in the National Insurance Manual at NIM39110.

If the member does not have a NI number, they can provide a statement giving reasons why they do not have one.

If a member does not know if they have a NI number or has lost their NI number, they can find more information on GOV.UK at find a lost national insurance number.

Scheme administrators should not accept contributions as relievable contributions without the relevant information and declarations/statements and should not claim relief at source from HMRC for members who do not have a valid NI number or a statement that they do not have one. In these circumstances, the member has no entitlement to relief at source. This includes members who’ve provided you with a temporary number.

If a scheme makes relief at source claims for a member who has not given a valid NI number, HMRC is entitled to ask for the relief at source to be repaid. Pension scheme administrators who think may have given relief at source in these circumstances should email: pensions.businessdelivery@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk and put ‘Relief at source NINO’ in the subject line of the email and we’ll work with you on a case by case basis to correct the position.

If your member gives you a valid NI number after you’ve received a contribution on their behalf, you cannot make a retrospective claim for relief at source in respect of the period prior to when you received the information.

This does not affect your right under regulation 11(7) of SI 2005/3448 to make a supplementary claim for relief at source to correct an error.

4. Amendments to the APSS105 and APSS106

We’re amending forms APSS105 and APSS106 to include information about contributions made by members who are Welsh taxpayers and the tax relief you’re reclaiming on these contributions.

You can see the draft forms in:

• Appendix 2 draft form APSS105
• Appendix 3 draft form APSS106

You should not use these draft forms for your repayment claims during 2018 to 2019. Instead you must use the existing APSS105 for interim repayment claims and the APSS106 for annual repayment claims.

We’ll reject any relief at source repayment claims submitted on the draft forms and you’ll have to resubmit your repayment claim using the current version of the forms.

We’ve published the draft forms for information only (not for consultation) so that you can prepare for the changes to the forms in April 2019. We may make further small amendments to these before April 2019 but will let you know if we make any big changes to these drafts.