UK pension, bond and tax-planning guides.
The rule, the working, the citation.
Short technical explainers on the parts of pension, bond, care-cost and income-tax planning that are most often computed wrongly — including HICBC and the other income-tax traps.
Each is grounded in legislation, official guidance and the cases our engine tests against.
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82 guides and 24 calculators available
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Pensions
Annual allowance, lump-sum allowances, the tax on taking money out, and the death-benefit rules.
Pension annual allowance and carry forward, explained
The standard allowance, the taper, the MPAA and carry forward in one place — how the input amount is measured (DB included) and how the charge falls out.
Start here →Carry forward
- Pensions · Annual allowance · 10 min read
Carry-forward of unused annual allowance: the three-year window, the taper, and the corner cases
Three years of unused allowance, used oldest-first, after the current year is spent. The taper and the MPAA are where it goes wrong.
Read → - Pensions · Annual allowance · 8 min read
Maximum pension contribution with carry forward: the second limit that still applies
Two limits, not one. The annual allowance says how much can be paid without a charge; FA 2004 s.190 says how much of it attracts relief — and carry forward moves only the first.
Read → - Pensions · Annual allowance · 6 min read
Taper and carry forward together: the order of operations
A £300,000-income year with a £60,000 contribution and no AA charge — taper to £40,000, then £20,000 of carry forward, oldest first.
Read →
Tapered allowance
- Pensions · Annual allowance · 4 min read
The tapered annual allowance, explained
The two-gate taper worked end to end. Threshold income opens the gate; adjusted income sets the reduction. A £290,000 earner keeps £45,000 of allowance.
Read → - Pensions · Annual allowance · 7 min read
Tapered annual allowance: worked examples for 2025/26 and 2026/27
Three clients on £280,000, £300,000 and £380,000, worked end to end for 2025/26 — plus why 2026/27 runs identically and 2022/23 didn’t.
Read → - Pensions · Annual allowance · 5 min read
Threshold income vs adjusted income: the two numbers behind the taper
The two income tests, kept apart: what each adds, what each subtracts, and why a large personal contribution can keep a member out of the taper.
Read →
Money purchase AA
- Pensions · Annual allowance · 4 min read
The money purchase annual allowance (MPAA)
What triggers the MPAA, why carry forward can’t cover the DC excess (though it survives for the DB side), and a £5,000 charge worked from a £15,000 contribution.
Read → - Pensions · Annual allowance · 6 min read
What happens if you exceed the money purchase annual allowance
The £10,000 cap, the default-versus-alternative test that catches people out, and three worked clients — £2,000, £14,400 and £0 of charge.
Read → - Pensions · Annual allowance · 4 min read
Does a UFPLS trigger the MPAA? (and what else does)
The trigger list, the £10,000 cap that follows, and a £5,000 charge worked from a £15,000 contribution after the trigger.
Read → - Pensions · Annual allowance · 5 min read
MPAA and carry forward: what survives a trigger and what doesn’t
Why carry-forward can’t rescue a £5,000 money-purchase excess but still covers defined-benefit accrual — the cordon, grounded in PTM055100 and ADR-038.
Read →
DB pension inputs
The charge & checking
- Pensions · Annual allowance · 5 min read
How the annual allowance charge is calculated — and who pays it
The excess over the available allowance, taxed at the marginal rate — £450 on a £1,000 excess for an additional-rate member — and the mandatory scheme-pays test.
Read → - Pensions · Annual allowance · 4 min read
Has my client breached the annual allowance? A decision aid
An interactive decision aid: answer four questions and see which annual-allowance rules engage, then confirm the charge on the calculator.
Read →
Lump sum allowances after the LTA: the LSA, LSDBA and TTFAC
The post-LTA framework in one place — the LSA, the LSDBA and the TTFAC, with figures, worked examples, live calculators and a TTFAC decision guide.
Start here →The allowances
- Pensions · Lump sum allowances · 5 min read
The Lump Sum Allowance: how £268,275 actually gets consumed
What the LSA is, what consumes it, and a worked excess case — £200,000 PCLS into £168,275 of headroom.
Read → - Pensions · Lump sum allowances · 5 min read
The LSDBA: the £1,073,100 ceiling that bites on death before 75
A £1.2m tax-free death benefit against the £1,073,100 ceiling: £126,900 excess, £51,437 on the beneficiary.
Read → - Pensions · Lump sum allowances · 5 min read
LSA vs LSDBA: the two lump-sum allowances, compared
The £268,275 in-life cap and the £1,073,100 life-and-death cap, side by side. What consumes each, and why the LSA sits inside the LSDBA.
Read →
Transitional certificates (TTFAC)
- Pensions · Lump sum allowances · 6 min read
Do I need a transitional tax-free amount certificate?
Same 80%-of-LTA history, two clients: a certificate hands one of them £64,620 of allowance back and costs the other £35,380. How to tell them apart.
Read → - Pensions · Lump sum allowances · 6 min read
TTFAC: when the certificate recovers £64,620 — and when it costs £35,380
Same 80%-of-LTA history, two evidence positions: +£64,620 of recovered LSA in one, −£35,380 in the other.
Read →
Protected allowances
- Pensions · Lump sum allowances · 6 min read
Fixed protection and the lump sum allowance
What fixed protection gives a client now: the FP2016 ceiling our engine reproduces to the penny (£312,500 / £1,250,000), and the FP2012/2014 figures alongside it.
Read → - Pensions · Lump sum allowances · 6 min read
Individual protection 2014 and 2016
How individual protection sets the allowance: a £1.2m IP2016 fund gives a £300,000 lump sum allowance, reproduced to the penny by the engine.
Read → - Pensions · Lump sum allowances · 6 min read
Scheme-specific protected tax-free cash (over 25%)
What scheme-specific protected tax-free cash is, which schemes carried it, and why it flips the TTFAC decision the published guides flag as a £35,380 mistake.
Read →
Pension withdrawals: how taking money out is taxed
UFPLS, tax-free cash plus flexi-access drawdown, and small pots — how each route is taxed, where the taxable element lands in the computation, the month-1 emergency code, the MPAA and the recycling rule.
Start here →Taking money out
- Pensions · Pension withdrawals · 6 min read
Tax on a pension lump sum: the 25% rule and what the other 75% costs
The 25% tax-free rule, the PCLS permitted maximum, the £268,275 lump sum allowance, UFPLS against PCLS, and worked figures at basic rate, higher rate and across the £100,000 taper.
Read → - Pensions · Pension withdrawals · 6 min read
Tax on pension drawdown income
Why drawdown income is 100% taxable, how it fills the bands, what the same £30,000 costs at different income levels, the Scottish ladder, and the month-1 code on the first payment.
Read → - Pensions · Pension withdrawals · 7 min read
UFPLS explained: the uncrystallised funds pension lump sum
The FA 2004 Sch 29 para 12A definition, payment-age conditions, the allowance-capped 25/75 split, the MPAA trigger, and how a UFPLS compares with tax-free cash plus drawdown.
Read →
Emergency tax
Recycling & anti-avoidance
Pensions, death benefits and inheritance tax
The age-75 line that sets income tax, the allowance that caps a tax-free lump sum, and the inheritance-tax change from April 2027 — what is settled and what is still being finalised.
Start here →Paying death benefits
- Pensions · Death benefits · 5 min read
Pension death-benefit nominations: why the expression of wish matters
How discretion and the expression of wish work, why a non-dependant needs a nomination to be offered drawdown, and what a stale form costs.
Read → - Pensions · Death benefits · 6 min read
The two-year rule on pension death benefits
When the two-year clock starts, what happens to a benefit paid late, and why a lump sum to a trust can suffer a flat 45% charge.
Read →
Inheritance tax (from 2027)
- Pensions · Death benefits · 6 min read
Pensions and inheritance tax from April 2027: what is changing
What counts and what does not, why the personal representatives report and pay, the 50% hold-back that protects the estate, and the official numbers.
Read → - Pensions · Death benefits · 6 min read
The £2m taper: how pensions can destroy the residence nil-rate band from 2027
The pension is added to the estate, the £2m test runs on the bigger figure, and an allowance for the family home that looked safe can shrink or disappear.
Read → - Pensions · Death benefits · 7 min read
The post-75 double charge: IHT plus income tax on inherited pensions
Two taxes can hit one inherited pension — but not the same slice. How the enacted offset works depending on who pays, and the process guidance still to come.
Read → - Pensions · Death benefits · 7 min read
How inheritance tax is split between the estate and each pension from April 2027
One estate calculation, several pension-level records: the information flow, the beneficiary split, and why the pension’s share of the bill is still a modelled figure.
Read → - Pensions · Death benefits · 7 min read
Scheme pays, PRs pay, or the beneficiary pays: the three IHT payment routes
The three ways the tax can be paid — estate, scheme direct, or beneficiary — plus the 50% hold-back and 15-month clock that sit alongside them.
Read → - Pensions · Death benefits · 6 min read
The road to April 2027: what is law, what is draft, and the deadlines that matter
Royal Assent, the May technical note, the closed consultation and the April 2027 start date — each one marked law, draft or still pending.
Read → - Pensions · Death benefits · 8 min read
Spend down, gift, insure or bypass: quantifying the April 2027 options
What each option actually changes — pension value, estate value, cash to pay the bill or later ownership — set out plainly, with no recommendation.
Read →
The 2027 tax traps, worked
- Pensions · Death benefits · 6 min read
The 67% pension death-tax trap explained (2027)
Where the 64%/67% headline comes from, why it is not double tax on the same pound, and the enacted offset that stops it climbing higher.
Read → - Pensions · Death benefits · 6 min read
The £2m RNRB taper, worked: when a pension costs £150,000 of nil-rate band
The £2m taper turned concrete: £150,000 of residence nil-rate band gone and £260,000 more inheritance tax, from one £500,000 pension.
Read →
Investment bonds
Chargeable-event gains and top-slicing relief.
Top-slicing relief on investment bonds, explained
The five-step relief, the post-2021/22 PSA recalc that is our load-bearing difference, multiple gains, and how the chargeable gain is built — with each calculator.
Start here →Start here
The 2021 change
- Investment bonds · Top-slicing relief · 9 min read
How top-slicing relief changed in 2021 — and which tools still get it wrong
The post-2021/22 PSA recalc, worked end to end on an offshore case. £6,817 relief the old way; £7,417 the right way.
Read → - Investment bonds · Top-slicing relief · 4 min read
Top-slicing relief after 2021: where HMRC’s own calculator went wrong
The post-2021 change, the tools that lagged it (HMRC’s included), and the one-line test that tells you whether yours is current.
Read →
How top-slicing works
- Investment bonds · Top-slicing relief · 6 min read
How to calculate top-slicing relief: the five steps
Steps 1 to 5 worked on a £60,000 offshore gain before any TAR over six years: liability with the gain, the annual equivalent, the relieved liability, and £8,846 of relief.
Read → - Investment bonds · Top-slicing relief · 5 min read
Complete years (N) in top-slicing: full surrender vs excess event
Fixing N: from the start on a full surrender, from the last excess event on a part surrender — plus the same-tax-year flag that verifies dates but no longer changes N.
Read → - Investment bonds · Top-slicing relief · 4 min read
Does top-slicing relief reduce adjusted net income?
Top-slicing relief is a tax reducer, not an income deduction. The consequence: the full gain still bites on the £100,000 personal-allowance taper and the HICBC.
Read → - Investment bonds · Chargeable events · 6 min read
The 5% allowance trap: a taxable gain on a bond that lost money
A bond down £5,000 produces a £15,000 taxable gain before any TAR and a £2,900 bill — the part-surrender excess mechanics, worked.
Read →
Multiple gains & segments
- Investment bonds · Top-slicing relief · 6 min read
Two bond gains in one tax year: how top-slicing aggregates them
HMRC’s two-bond example (TSR £8,185.20), the sum-of-slices method that produces it, and the weighted-N shortcut that doesn’t.
Read → - Investment bonds · Chargeable events · 6 min read
Part surrender vs segment surrender: same cash, different tax
The same £30,000 from the same bond: £2,900 by part surrender, £0 by segments. How each route measures the gain.
Read → - Investment bonds · Top-slicing relief · 6 min read
Onshore vs offshore bonds: how top-slicing relief differs
Same relief calculation, same credit inside it — different net tax at the end. Where the onshore/offshore split actually bites, and the cases where it does not help.
Read →
Trustees, certificates & reporting
- Investment bonds · Top-slicing relief · 4 min read
Can trustees claim top-slicing relief?
Why discretionary trustees get no top-slicing relief, why a bare trust is different, and where personal representatives stand.
Read → - Investment bonds · Chargeable events · 6 min read
How to read a chargeable event certificate
The four fields that matter, a worked read of an onshore certificate, and why the “tax treated as paid” isn’t cash your client can reclaim.
Read → - Investment bonds · Chargeable events · 5 min read
Reporting a chargeable event gain to HMRC
The chargeable event certificate, the SA101 box, the onshore 20% notional credit, and when a gain pulls someone into self-assessment.
Read →
Chargeable events: depth
- Investment bonds · Chargeable events · 6 min read
Deficiency relief: when a bond loss gives money back
HMRC’s own worked example: a £10,000 deficiency turning into £2,200 of tax reduction — and why a basic-rate taxpayer gets nothing.
Read → - Investment bonds · Chargeable events · 5 min read
Chargeable event on death: the value is taken before death, not the payout
Why a £150,000 death benefit can produce a gain on only the £130,000 surrender value before death — and who is taxed on it.
Read → - Investment bonds · Chargeable events · 5 min read
Assigning a bond: when it triggers a chargeable event (and when it doesn’t)
The money’s-worth line decides whether an assignment is taxed. A gift assignment defers the whole history to the new owner. And a trust changes who pays.
Read → - Investment bonds · Chargeable events · 5 min read
Time-apportionment relief: reducing a bond gain for qualifying foreign days
Why a £60,000 qualifying gain before any TAR can be taxed on £42,000 after three of ten years spent non-resident — and why “onshore means no relief” is no longer the rule.
Read → - Investment bonds · Chargeable events · 5 min read
The personal portfolio bond charge: the annual 15% deemed gain
How the PPB charge compounds — £30,000 in year one on a £200,000 bond, £34,500 in year two — and the permitted-property line that avoids it.
Read →
The error record
Care & later life
The social-care means test and what the state pays.
Paying for care: the means test, and the routes that are not means-tested
The capital limits and tariff income by nation, plus the routes that bypass the means test entirely — NHS Continuing Healthcare, funded nursing care, and Scotland’s free personal care.
Start here →The means test
NHS funding
- Care · NHS funding · 6 min read
NHS Continuing Healthcare: the funding route that is not means-tested
What CHC covers, the four-characteristic screen that decides eligibility, and why a £500,000 self-funder with a CHC-eligible need pays nothing.
Read → - Care · NHS funding · 6 min read
Funded nursing care: FNC, RNCC and free personal care, by nation
England’s £267.68 FNC, Scotland’s free personal and nursing care, Northern Ireland’s £100 RNCC, and Wales’s separately evidenced 2026/27 components.
Read →
Your home & property
Tax planning
Salary sacrifice, pension tax relief, wrapper comparisons and the income tax traps.
High-income tax traps: the 60% band, the £100k trap and the pension fix
The high-marginal-rate income tax traps in one place — the £100k/60% personal-allowance taper, the child benefit charge and the £100k childcare eligibility limit — with the pension mechanics and a worked case.
Start here →The £100k / 60% trap
- Tax planning · The £100k trap · 6 min read
The £100k tax trap, explained: the 60% band and how a pension contribution escapes it
The £100k personal-allowance taper, the 60% band (67.5% in Scotland), the childcare cliff, and the pension contribution that escapes them — with the maths.
Read → - Tax planning · The £100k trap · 4 min read
The Scottish tax trap: why it’s 67.5%, not 60%
Why a Scottish taxpayer faces 67.5% (not 60%) between £100,000 and £125,140 — and how a pension contribution escapes it.
Read →
Salary sacrifice & pension tax relief
- Tax planning · Salary sacrifice · 4 min read
What is salary sacrifice, and how does it work?
What salary sacrifice is, how a scheme works, and a worked example.
Read → - Tax planning · Salary sacrifice · 8 min read
Salary sacrifice for pensions, explained
Pension salary sacrifice in full — the NI saving relief-at-source misses, the employer top-up, the threshold rescue, and the annual-allowance and benefit catches.
Read → - Tax planning · Salary sacrifice · 5 min read
How much can you salary sacrifice into a pension?
Why there is no single salary sacrifice limit — and the four boundaries that decide how much you can really put in: the NMW floor, the £60,000 annual allowance, scheme rules, and the enacted 2029 NI cap.
Read → - Tax planning · Salary sacrifice · 5 min read
Salary sacrifice and National Insurance: the saving most calculators miss
The National Insurance saving is what makes salary sacrifice better than a personal contribution — and the part most calculators leave out.
Read → - Tax planning · Salary sacrifice · 5 min read
Is salary sacrifice worth it? The pros, the cons and the catches
The case for and against pension salary sacrifice, including the disadvantages the sales pitch leaves out.
Read → - Tax planning · Salary sacrifice · 4 min read
Salary sacrifice and the 2025 Budget: the National Insurance cap from April 2029
The enacted April-2029 cap on NI-free salary-sacrificed pension contributions: what the Act fixes and what the regulations still need to settle.
Read → - Tax planning · Salary sacrifice · 6 min read
Higher-rate pension tax relief: how it works and how to claim it
The three routes to marginal-rate pension relief, the self-assessment claim relief at source demands, and the £10,000 worked figures at 40%, 45% and an effective 60%.
Read →
Wrappers, compared
- Tax planning · Wrappers, compared · 7 min read
SIPP vs ISA: the tax treatment, side by side
Relief in versus tax out, stated side by side with the statute — and a £10,000 contribution worked both ways at basic and higher rate.
Read → - Tax planning · Wrappers, compared · 6 min read
Pension or ISA: how the tax maths actually compares
The 6.25% basic-rate uplift, the higher-rate version, salary sacrifice as the pension-side extra, and the £100k and child-benefit side effects — all worked in £.
Read → - Tax planning · Wrappers, compared · 8 min read
Investment bond vs ISA: two very different tax wrappers
The chargeable-event regime against the ISA exemption: the 5% allowance, the 20% onshore credit and top-slicing relief, each stated with its section number and worked in £.
Read → - Tax planning · Wrappers, compared · 7 min read
Net pay vs relief at source: how each pension relief method works
The two relief mechanics side by side, the low-earner net-pay anomaly and its FA 2004 s.193A top-up, salary sacrifice as the third route, and the ANI treatment of each.
Read →
Reference
Rates, allowances and quick look-ups.
Practice
Working with providers and getting the calculation inputs right.
— From rule to result
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