final salary pensions. can someone clear up new rules for my sorry brain.

[fothergill]

completely confused. does it mean that to work out your annual contribution you take the...annual contribution and x10? And so when that is raised to x15 your £300 monthly contribution will be assessed as over the £50000 limit and taxed? Sorry to be so boring but am just trying to work out if we are still leaking money from our household on this next one or not....

You (or whoever this applies to) should ask the questions about specific changes to monthly contributions to whomever is organising their pension contributions. Personnel or HR department if it's through an organisation, I'd suggest. Personal pension contributions attract tax-relief i.e. the government gives you the tax back on your contribution to add to the pension pot. The new rule is that the tax relief stops after you've contributed £50k a year to your pension... this is down from a maximum of £255k annually. more information here

Few people other than the very wealthy are contributing £50k+ to their pensions each year. And, for those who are always going on about 'fat-cats' not paying their full share, this is a good example of new rules closing off opportunities for tax avoidance.

Thanks for answering. It's the different way they work out an annual contribution for final salary ones versus defined contribution private pensions that is flummoxing me. I suppose it doesn't make much odds. I am pretty much groomed into anticipating an ethereal wage coming in now anyway.

There's a bit more information in the Telegraph here