Opinion  

Recent uncertainty shines a light on the extraordinary benefit of pension tax relief

Lisa Webster

Lisa Webster

However, the first claims cannot be made until 2025-26 relating to the 2024-25 tax year. It also looks like lower-paid employees will have to take action to claim the extra tax relief, unlike under relief at source schemes where it happens automatically.

This of course means there are likely to be many who do not bother, or are not aware of what they need to do, especially when you consider these are likely to be some of the least engaged pension savers.

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Ideally the net pay remedy would be a more automated system and brought in earlier, because it is those that need help the very most that are losing out, not just on the tax relief itself but also on the compounding effect, which we know is so very valuable.

Lisa Webster is senior technical consultant at  AJ Bell