Tax relief pension query

[Hilbil212001]

Hi I’m wondering if anyone can help, it’s not financial advice as such, just an answer to one question. My husband currently pays 5% towards his pension which is £290 or thereabouts. He wants to up it to 10% which on pension calculators shows as £583 with £116 tax relief. So does this mean we would be paying £467 out of his take home pay, or £583. I’ve tried Google but it doesn’t seem to answer this particular query. Thank you

If your husbands salary is £70k a year, 5% pension contribution is approx £290, take home pay £4088.

Assuming he is on the standard tax code and has no other taxable benefits/bonus/income etc a 10% contribution is £583, take home pay of £3913

Thank you goldpanther. We are in Scotland and he is on the higher tax code which complicates matters I suppose.

The https://www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/salary.php is a good site for putting in different pension % to get a good idea of how it will affect take home pay. (Just select an option besides auto enrollment for the pension type)

Oh brilliant thank you

Seems like there's a tick box for Scotland, hope it helps.

It depends on the type of pension he is putting into. If the company one then upping will be the £583.
If he sets up AVC pension through his work (additional voluntary contribution) then he will get tax relief on it and it will be less cost to his paycheck but his employer won't put in any additional contributions but it's on the stock market so can build a separate pot.

I do this (also in Scotland) and it does reduce me down a tax band but also my work pension is linked to state pension age so this way I create a bridging pot.

He definitely pays a company one as his overall contribution to his pension is £855 even though only £290 of it is his contribution. Thank you ☺️

Mine goes as salary sacrifice which changes the take home calc again, probably worth checking with his HR dept

I’m starting to think so. Was hoping I could work it out but he is completely clueless, and I’m not far behind lol.

Martin Lewis had a good article on it but a lot depends on the type of scheme etc to if it's automatically coming off or if he needs to claim it. If you Google and put tax relief pensions Martin Lewis it should pop up.

I plugged it into a calculator. So if his salary is £69600, if it’s 5% as is, his monthly take home should be £3910. This would decrease to £3742 if 10%.

if doing salary sacrifice, this should be £3915 currently and would decrease to £3753. My employer also gives a little rebate of NI. I think it makes more of a difference when you have a student loan.

you can have a play on and select Scotland https://listentotaxman.com/?year=2025&taxregion=scotland&age=0&pension=%&time=1&ingr=62640

Thanks all 🙂