2017-18 pension conts in excess of £40k

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I have just filed SA for 2017-18 using the online portal. I declared a payment to my personal pension of (gross) £26k. 

With company pension conts (salary sacrifice basis) I have exceeded the £40k annual allowance.

I do have available allowance from prior year so that I should not suffer penalty.

However, nowhere in the SA was I asked to confirm what my total pension conts were (inclusive of company conts) - so looking at the SA alone only the £26k to the personal pension is visible. 

Will HMRC pick up that total conts exceed £40k and ask me to confirm/provide evidence that I had sufficient allowance from prior year? 

Never having exceeded the annual allowance before I, perhaps mistakenly, expected to need to declare such in the SA itself so am concerned I may have filled something in wrong or made an incorrect declaration on the submission.

Just to note - the calculated tax due on the SA (and refund applicable as a result of the personal pension cont) is in-line with my expectations (and does not include any penalty for exceeding £40k annual pension cont limit).

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By Matrix
26th May 2018 09:43

Assuming the pension contributions are covered by your net relevant earnings then all is fine. There is nowhere on the tax return for total pension contributions and in fact you can obtain relief for contributions higher than your earnings, there is no restriction which is an error on the form in my view.

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By Paul D Utherone
28th May 2018 16:51

The HMRC return makes no checks and presumes you have self assessed the correct sum and not been required to make a clawback charge.

It doesn't hurt to make a 'white space' note explaining that no charge arises as any excess of premiums over the annual allowance is covered by unused relied brought forward but it is not necessary

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