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MoneyWeek - how to reclaim money owed by the government

Journalist: Marc Shoffman, Freelance

ended 09. February 2024

I am writing a piece for MoneyWeek looking at all the money people could be owed from the government without realising.

This includes things like unclaimed child trust funds, pension tax relief, marriage allowance etc.

I am keen for comments on reliefs that people usually arent aware of and how to reclaim.

Kind regards

Marc

2 responses from the Newspage community

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Editor
Ross LaceyVerified
Director & Independent Financial Adviser at Fairview Financial Management
Two of the most common things we see are people missing out on the marriage allowance and higher-rate tax relief on their pensions.


The marriage allowance is available to those where one partner isn't using their full personal allowance, and the other is a basic rate taxpayer. £1260 of the allowance of the non-taxpayer is transferred which gives a £252 tax saving.


For higher rate pension tax relief, this tends to be where higher or additional rate taxpayers have made personal contributions to their pension schemes. They would very likely have received 20% tax relief at source, but there's a further 20%/25% available to them which needs to be claimed manually. This is done either throughba tax return or contacting HMRC.


For both of these, claims can be back-dated four tax years so there's still a couple of months left to claim for the 19/20 tax year.
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Joshua GerstlerVerified
Chartered Financial Planner at The Orchard Practice
A lot of people are aware that they get tax relief when they make pension contributions. However what many are not aware of is that if you are a higher rate or additional rate tax payer, you only receive the basic rate of tax relief. As a higher or additional rate tax payer, you need to complete a self assessment tax return to reclaim the rest. This could be a lot of money. If you are an additional rate tax payer and you have contributed the maximum £48,000 into your pension, the government will top it up with £12,000 taking the total into your pension to £60,000. If you then send in your self assessment tax return, the government will reduce your tax bill by a further £15,000. So the £60,000 into your pension has only cost you £33,000.