Is there a difference between salary sacrifice and just paying more into your pension?

[yourmoneyoryourlife]

I recently increased my pension contributions at work from 2 to 20% in a bid to avoid paying the higher rate of tax.

I hadn't heard of salary sacrifice at the time- but now I'm wondering if that's what I should have done instead? And if there's even any difference between that and simply increasing your pension contributions?

Salary Sacrifice reduces your salary for National Insurance purposes as well as for Income Tax. So you pay less in NI contributions.

Ah right- thank you

Doesn’t a salary sacrifice scheme have to be set up by an employer?

You can only salary sacrifice if your employer allows it. This is how contributions go to my pension. My son works somewhere where they've deliberately decided not to salary sacrifice - it's a fintech with a young workforce and adversely impacts the amount they can borrow on mortgages if they salary sacrifice

Most pensions I've had and seen are salary sacrifice. Does your pension deduction appear on the left or right side of your payslip?

As above, your employer is the one who decides if it's salary sacrifice or not.

Yes to an extent... I can choose whether my contributions are treated as salx or otherwise although the employer initially sets up as so

For a proper salary sacrifice the employer should also pay their NI savings into your pension.

There won’t be any employer NI saving if Labour make the rumoured changes in the budget.