Some of you may have received letters from HMRC about breaching your Annual Allowance.

This is due to the increase in value for the 1987 pension benefits. Below is the advice form our pensions expert.

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If you receive a letter you will have breached the Annual Allowance (AA) threshold for the increase in the value of your PPS1987 benefits during the pension input period (PIA) 2022/23.  This will be as a consequence of the application of the Remedy and your pensionable service being rolled back into PPS1987 up until the end of the Remedy period (31.03.2022).  Service in PPS1987 uses more of your AA than does PPS2015 and your AA usage will have been re-calculated to reflect this. 

For the most part, AA breaches were typically only incurred by officers on promotion from C/I to Superintendent and above.  However, as a result of the application of the Remedy, a number of Inspectors and Chief Inspectors are now incurring a breach.   You will need to obtain a copy of your pension savings statement (PSS), which will show your re-calculated AA usage.  You will then need to use the HMRC’s digital portal to upload the relevant information.  There is some helpful information about this on the NPCC’s Police Pension Info website. 

You can either complete this exercise yourself if you feel confident to do so or, alternatively, you can instruct an accountant to do it for you.  if you choose the latter, there is provision for you to reclaim the costs of doing so from your force.  There are a number of firms of accountants listed on the NPCC’s website.  We tend to refer people to Leon Herman Chartered Accountants and Business Advisers as we have been using them for some years now.  They have the necessary systems and processes in place to assist officers with the declaration process.  They will charge £695 + VAT for their services.  If you would like me to introduce your electronically to Jerry Scriven, the Managing Partner of Leon Herman, please contact Gill Burford who will put you in contact with me.

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As an addition to this the force is agreeing to pay for any accountant that is hired to sort this for you. All the details re this can be found on the force intranet under the pensions section.

Hope this helps, but any queries, please let me know

Take care

Gill