Annuities: Are you Paying too much Tax?
The terms pension and annuity are often used as if they were interchangeable. However, there is an important difference which means that you may have been paying too much income tax on your annuity for the last two and three quarter years.
Firstly two definitions: a “purchased life annuity” (or PLA) is bought with your own money as opposed to money coming directly from your pension fund. Perhaps confusingly, lump sums like the tax free quarter cash on retirement being used to purchase an annuity create a PLA. Some of the PLA is regarded as return of your capital and hence is a non taxable “capital content”. The balance is interest which is subject to income tax. A pension can be bought directly with the money arising from a pension fund. It is all taxable as earned income.
Holders of PLAs will be issued with annual tax certificates. Holders of pensions will have a Notice of Coding from HMRC and be issued with annual P60s. The interest element of PLAs (not pensions) is classed as savings income and therefore often covered by the personal savings allowance. This allowance was introduced with effect from 6th April 2016 and allows up to £1,000 of savings income each year not to be taxed.
If you have a PLA, please check whether income tax is being deducted at source. If it is, please check whether it should be in view of the newish personal savings allowance. The procedure for correcting continuing overpayments is to fill in HMRC’s Form R89 and send it to your annuity provider. To reclaim past overpayments, fill in HMRC’s Form R40 and send it to HMRC.
This little understood issue could save holders of annuities a lot of money. My annuity is with a major UK insurance company who did not even realise that there was an issue until I raised it.
(07/01/2019)
















