Pension Input Period
The pension input period's sole relevance is in seeing if you have exceeded the annual allowance, which would result in your having to pay an annual allowance charge.
It is the END DATE of the pension input period that is RELEVANT in determining whether or not the annual allowance has been exceeded. For example, a pension input period ending on 30 October 2009 would be tested against the 2009/2010 annual allowance of £245,000.
A pension input period normally lasts for 12 months. For example, an input period starting on 1 November would end the following 30 October. (The first input period would actually last from 1 November to 1 November the following year, but further input periods would end on the 30 October.)
Pension contributions made by either you, your employer, or anybody else on your behalf, (or in the case of final salary pensions, increases in the value of your pension benefits ) in a pension input period, all count in testing to see if you have exceeded the annual allowance.
TAX RELIEF: A 'pension input period' is NOT the same as a tax year; and it has absolutely no relevance whatsoever in your getting tax relief on your pension contributions. To get tax relief on your pension contribution, you HAVE to make your contribution before the tax year ends on 5 April. If you intend to make a pension contribution, but do not do so by 5 April, you have permanently lost that tax year's available tax relief. |
Changing a pension input period:
It is possible to change a pension input period by bringing forward the end date. You are not allowed, however, to have the next input period ending in the same tax year as the previous input period.
Multiple pension input periods:
If you have several different pensions; for example, if you are a member of an occupational pension and have a personal pension, you may have multiple pension input periods, as the period start date (and therefore the end date, 12 months later, unless changed) will be different, assuming your various pension schemes started on different dates.
