Guidance

Newsletter 143 — September 2022

Published 30 September 2022

1. Government’s Growth Plan 2022

The Chancellor of the Exchequer presented the government’s Growth Plan 2022 to parliament on 23 September 2022. It confirms that the government will bring forward the reduction of the UK Basic Rate of income tax, reducing this to 19% from the tax year 2023 to 2024.

We know it takes time to update your IT systems, and the government have therefore confirmed that for tax year 2023 to 2024, the relevant rate of tax for Relief at Source pension schemes will be 20%, meaning you can continue to claim at 20% for all members for the tax year 2023 to 2024.

From tax year 2024 to 2025 onwards, your systems will need to be updated to be able to claim at the relevant Basic Rate of income tax for each of your members, which will be provided in your notification of residency status report in January 2024.

If you have any queries about this announcement and the impacts on your relief at source processes, contact us at: [email protected].

2. Relief at source

2.1 Annual return of information and notification of residency status reports

If you need to submit an annual return of information for 2021 to 2022 and you have not already done so, it’s important that you successfully submit this as soon as possible. Without this we’ll be unable to give you a notification of residency status report in January 2023.

You can find more information about the notification of residency status reports in check a pension scheme member’s residency status for relief at source guidance on GOV.UK.

2.2 Reporting excess relief

In Pension schemes newsletter 139 we told you that by April 2025, we aim to have a fully digital service that will replace the current Relief at Source paper service. This will include changes to how you report and pay excess relief, and will replace the need to make any changes to your systems to report excess relief on a supplementary annual claim. The current easement explained in Pension schemes newsletter 132 will remain in place until then.

We’ll give more details on the changes being made for April 2025 in future newsletters.

2.3 Emailing APSS105 interim claim forms

In Pension schemes newsletter 142 we explained that we’ve experienced issues with multiple APSS105 interim claim forms being emailed together as this can lead to problems with processing.

This is a reminder that from 1 October 2022, you need to send each APSS105 on a separate email. If we receive your emailed APSS105 claim form by the last working day of the month, and we’re satisfied with the claim, it will normally be paid either on the:

• 21st of the following month
• next working day

3. Paying charges

If you need to make a payment, where possible, you must use the relevant charge reference so that your payment is allocated correctly.

In Managing pension schemes service newsletter April 2022 we explained that, for a short period of time, you were unable to make a payment for a charge using the Pension Scheme Tax Reference (PSTR) as the reference.

If you do not have a specific charge reference to make payment against, you can now make payments using a PSTR as the reference. All payments received with a PSTR as the reference will automatically be allocated to any outstanding charges on your account on the Managing Pension Schemes service. Once outstanding charges are cleared, if there is an overall credit balance on your account, you’ll be able to view this on the service.

If payments made using a PSTR are automatically allocated to the wrong charges, you’ll need to complete a reallocation request. You’ll need to complete a separate request for each payment allocated incorrectly. You can either send the completed request:

• in an email with ‘Reallocation request’ in the subject line to: [email protected]
• by printing it off and posting it to:

Pension Schemes Service
HM Revenue and Customs
BX9 1GH

4. Event Reporting

In Pension Schemes Newsletter 140 we told you that from April 2023 there would be a new reportable event for certain public service pension schemes. After further consideration, we can confirm this is no longer the case and there will be no new reporting requirement from April 2023, which will reduce additional admin burdens on pension scheme administrators.

We also told you that in Spring 2023 we expected to release the event report for 2023 to 2024 on the Managing pension schemes service. We now expect this to be Summer 2023 and we’ll give more updates and guidance in future newsletters.