We’ll send a Pension Savings Statement (PSS) to you if you meet one or more of the following criteria at 5 April 2023:
1. You’ve exceeded the Annual Allowance limit of £40,000 (those with high salaries may be subject to tapered Annual Allowance).
2. You earn over £100,000.
3. You’ve requested one.
Further information and guidance on how to calculate tapered annual allowance can be found on HMRC’s website.
If you're affected by 2015 Remedy (McCloud) and are due a PSS for 2022/23, we won't be automatically issuing your statement just yet, you can expect to receive it by 6 October 2024. This is because the Pension Input Amount (PIA) will need to be revised for 2022/23.
Not sure if you’re affected by 2015 Remedy (McCloud)? You can check here.
PSS will be issued to members who aren't impacted by the 2015 Remedy (McCloud),
Annual Allowance is the maximum value of the growth in your pension savings each year that can benefit from tax relief.
Annual Allowance applies to your entire pension savings with UK registered pension schemes.
Contributions that you and your employer have paid into any Defined Contribution pension arrangements (for example Civil Service AVC Schemes, the partnership pension account, a stakeholder pension or a personal pension outside the Civil Service pension arrangements) aren’t included on your Civil Service Pension Savings Statement.
If you have benefits in alpha and one of the other pension schemes, you will receive two PSS. If you only have benefits in alpha, you will receive one PSS.
If any of your personal details have changed, please update them via the Pension Portal.
We’ll start to send your PSS from July 2023 and are aiming to complete distribution by 31 August 2023 – ahead of the regulatory deadline of 6 October 2023. This will enable employers and members to have the maximum time available to plan and organise any necessary activities related to PSS.
PSS are sent by second class post. Please allow up to 6 October for your statement to arrive.
If you haven’t received your statement by 6 October, or need a replacement statement, contact us at pss@mycsp.co.uk.
If you're affected by 2015 Remedy (McCloud) then there's no need to contact us. We'll be issuing you with a statement, if you are due one, by 6 October 2024. In the meantime, there's nothing you need to do.
Not sure if you’re affected by 2015 Remedy (McCloud)? You can check here.
You must fulfil these responsibilities to comply with HMRC’s pension tax rules.
We cannot complete or assist you with any tax liability calculations. You should contact an independent financial adviser if you are concerned about how tax may affect your pension benefits.
You can calculate if you've a tax charge to pay using the HMRC online calculator: www.tax.service.gov.uk/paac.
You'll need your PIA as detailed on your statements, along with information from any other pension arrangements you may have. Please note: the HMRC calculator refers to “pension savings” which means the same as PIA for this purpose.
You can use any unused Annual Allowance from the three years prior to your earliest breach to offset against any taxable amount. You don't need to input the tax years that preceded the three years prior to your earliest breach into the calculator or for 2023/24.
For example, if 2022/23 was your first breach, you'd only need to select that year and the previous three years.
If you've enough carry forward allowance to cover the breach, there's no further action you need to take.
Contributions to the Civil Service Additional Voluntary Contribution Scheme (CSAVC) and benefits in the partnership pension scheme aren't included in your Pension Savings Statement. You'll need to request a statement from Legal and General for these schemes. In order to calculate whether you've a tax charge to pay, your total Pension Input Amount will be required.
The pension figures on your Annual Benefit Statement are an illustration of your benefits using your pensionable earnings (salary including pensionable allowances and bonuses) as at the statement date (31 March 2023).
The pension figures used to calculate your PIA as shown on your PSS are your pensionable earnings (salary including pensionable allowances and bonuses) for the PSS period (6 April 2022 to 5 April 2023) and can be different to those in your Annual Benefit Statement.
We have a legal requirement to send you a PSS if the growth in your Civil Service pension benefits is greater than the standard annual allowance.
Our Tax Awareness training course will explain what you need to do and by when to comply with the pension tax rules. It'll also help you to understand your tax position and the impact it could have on your pension benefits.
Your employer may pay for your place on this course, or you can choose to pay for it yourself. For more information about this, contact taxsupport@mycsp.co.uk.
PIA is the value of the growth of benefits over the Pension Input Period (6 April 2022 to 5 April 2023)
Your PIA can change from year to year depending on the percentage rise in your pensionable earnings, the inflation applied to the opening value of your PIA calculation, the length of your reckonable service and your membership type.
If the inflation applied to the opening balance of your pension at 5 April 2022 is higher than the growth in your pension benefits during the Pension Input Period, your PIA is zero.
Contact us to request your Pension Input Amounts
Claiming other benefits may trigger the MPAA. This will depend upon whether your money purchase PIA exceeds the MPAA in the tax year concerned. We only administer the Civil Service defined benefit schemes and so cannot assist you with this. Visit the MPAA rules page on the gov.uk website for more information.
If you were in the nuvos pension scheme and moved into alpha, your nuvos benefits will be treated as ‘deferred carve out’ from the following year onwards. This simply means that as your nuvos benefits are unaffected by any pay rises and contributing service, their PIA is automatically nil.
More information about deferred member ‘carve-out’ can be found on the Pensions Tax Manual page on the gov.uk website.
PSS recipients impacted by 2015 Remedy (McCloud) will not receive a 2022/23 statement this year, instead it will be issued by 6 October 2024.
On 1 October 2023, the pensionable service of Remedy affected members was 'rolled back' into members’ relevant Legacy scheme (classic, classic plus, premium or nuvos) for the Remedy Period (1 April 2015 to 31 March 2022) which will likely result in changes to members’ Pension Input Amounts (PIA).
We are recalculating the PIAs for all members affected by rollback. A PSS for the Remedy Period and for the 2022/23 tax year will be issued to those members by 6 October 2024 and will replace any previously issued PSS.
Members who exceed their Annual Allowance or earn over £100,000 and are not affected by the 2015 Remedy (McCloud), were issued with their 2022/23 PSS.
The deadline to ask the scheme to pay all, or part, of an Annual Allowance tax charge (a scheme pays election) for 2022/23 has been extended to 6 July 2025.
When the PSS is issued, members will need to report this through an electronic form at www.gov.uk/guidance/calculate-your-public-service-pension-adjustment.
If due to the Remedy, there are changes to the amount of Annual Allowance for earlier years then members should also report this to HMRC using the electronic form, not amend any previously submitted Self-Assessment tax return. However, members will only be able to use this service once they have received their 2022/23 PSS and any revised PSS for an earlier tax year.
Members who have been rolled back into their Legacy section from alpha, should not include information relating to an Annual Allowance tax charge deriving from their impacted public sector pension scheme on their 2022/23 Self-Assessment return.