NHS Prudential / Standard Life AVC scheme

[MamaLlama123]

I am currently frequently paying 40% Tax and wish to reduce this

I am not keen to increase additional NHS pension as not accessible until state pension age. I already pay significantly into this

The NHS offers MPAVC with Prudential and Standard life. With these schemes deductions happen before tax/ tax relief.

Does anyone have experience? would people recommend

Thanks

I don’t have experience of either of these. However just wanted to say there are other options like a SIPP which can be cheap and easy to manage. You pay in from taxed income, HMRC adds the tax relief which is 25% of what you pay in representing the 20% tax rate. You can claim the additional 20% back directly from HMRC.

Fellow NHS staff here.
I did AVC’s with the Pru a few years ago to bring my salary below the 40% tax bracket.
It was fine but it didn’t suit me and I ended up setting up a SIPP with vanguard and transferring it out. The reason it didn’t work for me was although it is fully flexible because the AVC’s go through payroll you needed to give over a months notice to change your payment. So end of tax year came round, I worked out I was 2k over and had no where to put it.
I found a SIPP suited me better because I could easily transfer it instantly from my bank account.

Did this then not mean you were taxed >40%

It’s tricky the first year. So I’m 3 days NHS 2 days self employed. So I made the first year pension contributions out of my self employed untaxed income. When I filled the self assessment at the end of that year my tax code on my employed income was altered which accounted for my ongoing SIPP contributions in subsequent years. eg. You contribute 10k into the SIPP, that then alters your tax code so you can earn personal allowance + the first 10k tax free.

if you’re 100% employed you’ll have to file a self assessment at the end of the year. That then ‘corrects’ your income for that year to account for the SIPP contributions. You might be able to contact HMRC and tell them you’re making SIPP contributions and whether they can alter the code in the first year? They’re usually pretty relaxed on it - on the self assessment you tell them how much you’re expecting to pay into the SIPP in the forthcoming year and they alter the tax code.