New Tax Year - New Start

At the end of the tax year there is often the mad dash for some to top up their pension or get in that last contribution to their ISA but there are those of us who, just because life gets too busy, miss the deadline. The beauty of the pension system is that it still may be possible for you to use unused annual allowance from the previous three tax years as well as contributing into this one by using carry forward and annual allowance rules.

For others, a new tax year could be seeing either a new pay rise and or paying a little less tax with the rise in the personal allowance from £11,500 to £11,850. If you’re being automatically enrolled, you should also be seeing your contribution and your employer’s contribution rising slightly as well, to help you meet your retirement goals. If your contribution hasn’t risen because you were already paying more than the minimum through yourself and your employer, you might want to consider using any extra money to increase your contribution yourself. Often employers will match any increase in contribution.

Hopefully one day you will be in a position that you have saved enough that the lifetime allowance becomes relevant to you. This tax year it has gone up from £1 Million to £1,030,000. If you are already above this figure or worried that you might be close to it, we have a Spotlight on the Lifetime Allowance that is worth a read.