Guidance

Check if your client has been affected by the public service pensions remedy

How to calculate your client’s tax position if you are a tax agent acting on their behalf and they’ve been affected by the public service pensions remedy (known as McCloud).

From:
HM Revenue & Customs
Published
5 October 2023
Last updated
19 September 2024 — See all updates

You will need to have written authorisation to act on behalf of your client if they’ve been affected by the public service pensions remedy and they want you to report changes to the tax position of their:

  • lifetime allowance charges
  • annual allowance charges
  • unauthorised payments charges

Before you start

To use the service, you will need information from your client about any annual allowance and lifetime allowance charges, including:

  • pension savings statements, including any revised statements
  • details of your client’s total taxable income — if you cannot provide this you will be asked for information required to calculate the total taxable income
  • details of your client’s threshold income — if you cannot provide this you will be asked for information required to calculate the threshold income
  • details of your client’s adjusted income — if you cannot provide this you will be asked for information required to calculate the adjusted income
  • details of your client’s personal allowance from the 2015 to 2016 tax year up to and including the 2022 to 2023 tax year — if you cannot provide this you will need to ask your client to get this information from their P60 or personal tax account
  • Self Assessment tax returns, if your client filed them
  • a retirement statement or benefit crystallisation event statement, if applicable
  • details of any public service pension schemes your client was a member of between and including the tax years 2015 to 2016 and 2022 to 2023
  • your client’s bank details (if they are due a refund)

You can check what information you will need (ODS, 5.68 KB) to be able to use this service.

How to check your client’s tax position following the remedy

  1. Use the Calculate your public service pensions adjustment service to check your client’s tax position.

  2. Download or print the information at the end of the service.

  3. If you do not have a form to report any changes, request one by emailing [email protected] with ‘Agent form’ in the subject line.

  4. Use the information from the service to complete the form.

  5. Send the information from the service with the completed form (and written authorisation from your client to act on their behalf) back to HMRC by emailing [email protected] — to send the form back, you will need to agree to corresponding with HMRC by email.

If you need to report changes to your client’s tax position for unauthorised payments, you will need to write to HMRC by emailing [email protected] with ‘unauthorised payments’ in the subject line. 

After you’ve applied

If your client has extra tax charges to pay for the tax year 2019 to 2020 up to and including tax year 2022 to 2023 and your client chooses to pay these, HMRC will issue a notice to your client and send a copy to you by post.

Repayment of tax charges to your client will depend on the tax years where tax has been overpaid.

Repayment of tax charges from tax year 2015 to 2016 up to and including tax year 2018 to 2019

If your client is due a repayment of tax charges for the tax year 2015 to 2016 up to and including tax year 2018 to 2019, HMRC will review the information and pass it on to the public service pension scheme, along with your details.

The pension scheme will:

  • repay any overpaid tax charges your client paid
  • increase your client’s pension benefits to cover the amount of repayment due for overpaid tax charges the scheme paid on your client’s behalf

The pension scheme may contact you for any additional information they need.

Repayment of tax charges from tax year 2019 to 2020 up to and including tax year 2022 to 2023

If your client is due a repayment of tax charges for the tax year 2019 to 2020 up to and including tax year 2022 to 2023, HMRC will review the information provided.

Where your client paid the tax charges directly to HMRC, we will repay your client using the bank details you provide. We will only accept your client’s bank details for repayment.

Where the pension scheme paid the tax charges on your client’s behalf, we will send the details onto the pension scheme. The pension scheme can then increase your client’s pension benefits to cover the amount of repayment due for overpaid tax charges the scheme paid on your client’s behalf.

Updates to this page

Published 5 October 2023
Last updated 19 September 2024 + show all updates

  1. Information that you need to provide about your client has been updated to include details about different allowances and incomes. Information about how repayments of tax charges are processed based on the tax years you are claiming for has also been updated.

  2. Clarified in 'how to check your client's tax position following the remedy' that you need to also send written authorisation from your client to act on their behalf.

  3. The information to check what you need before you use the service has been updated.

  4. First published.

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