You may have to pay tax if your pension contributions are too high

If your pension savings are more than your annual allowance for the tax year, and you do not have unused personal pension annual allowances from the 3 previous tax years to cover the difference, you will have to pay tax on the excess.

You should receive a statement from your pension provider telling you if your contributions exceed the annual allowance. If you contribute, or have contributed in the past, to more than one pension scheme, ask each pension provider for statements. This will help you work out how much you have gone above the allowance.

There is a calculator on the HMRC website but we can of course help you check that you have not exceeded the limits.

As you can see despite the “simplification” of pensions by George Osborne in 2015, the system is still extremely complicated and we are expecting further reforms in future Budgets. Nevertheless, saving into a pension is still very tax-efficient as, for a higher rate taxpayer, the net cost of saving £10,000 into a pension is currently only £6,000.