UK pension, bond and tax-planning guides.
The rule, the working, the citation.
Practical explainers for pension, bond, care-cost and income-tax calculations, with worked examples and the assumptions to check for each client.
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19 articles · 5 calculators
Annual allowance
The standard, tapered and money purchase allowances, carry forward, defined benefit inputs and the charge.
Carry forward
- Annual allowance · Carry forward · 6 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 → - Annual allowance · Carry forward · 7 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 → - Annual allowance · Carry forward · 2 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 → - Annual allowance · Carry forward · 8 min read
Your client’s pension savings statement: reading it for carry forward
What the 6 October statement shows, why a fund value is not a pension input amount, and how the four years on a statement set the carry-forward figure, with one worked year.
Read → - Annual allowance · Carry forward · 7 min read
Carry forward for company directors and the self-employed
Two limits for owner-managers and sole traders: carry forward lifts the annual allowance for company and personal contributions alike, while relief on personal contributions still follows earnings. With an engine-computed director example.
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Tapered allowance
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- Annual allowance · Tapered allowance · 2 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 £300,000 earner keeps £40,000 of allowance.
Read → - Annual allowance · Tapered allowance · 5 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 → - Annual allowance · Tapered allowance · 3 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.
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Money purchase AA
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- Annual allowance · Money purchase AA · 2 min read
The money purchase annual allowance (MPAA)
What triggers the MPAA, why carry forward can’t cover the DC excess, and a £5,000 chargeable excess worked from a £15,000 contribution.
Read → - Annual allowance · Money purchase AA · 5 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 — £1,000, £14,400 and £0 of charge.
Read → - Annual allowance · Money purchase AA · 3 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 chargeable excess worked from a £15,000 contribution after the trigger.
Read → - Annual allowance · Money purchase AA · 3 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 PTM056510.
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DB pension inputs
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- Annual allowance · DB pension inputs · 5 min read
DB pension input amounts: the CPI step that’s easy to miss
The opening value is uprated by September CPI before it is subtracted. Miss it and you manufacture an AA charge that is not due.
Read → - Annual allowance · DB pension inputs · 8 min read
NHS and LGPS annual allowance: the statement and the input amount
The NHS and LGPS entry point: how the scheme values pension growth, why the automatic lump sum counts once and not 16 times, and a worked input amount computed by the engine.
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The charge & checking
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- Annual allowance · The charge & checking · 4 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 → - Annual allowance · The charge & checking · 9 min read
Scheme pays: mandatory or voluntary, the deadlines, and reporting the charge
The two mandatory scheme pays conditions, the 31 July notice deadline and when it moves, the scheme’s Accounting for Tax deadline, and the SA101 boxes, with one worked charge.
Read → - Annual allowance · The charge & checking · 8 min read
Reporting an annual allowance charge on the self assessment return
Box 10, box 11 and box 12 of the SA101 for 2025/26, what happens when a scheme pays, estimates and the deadlines, with one worked charge.
Read → - Annual allowance · The charge & checking · 3 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.
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13 articles · 3 calculators
Lump sums and protections
The lump sum allowance, the LSDBA, transitional certificates and protected tax-free cash.
The allowances
- Lump sums and protections · The allowances · 3 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 → - Lump sums and protections · The allowances · 3 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, £53,322 of tax on the beneficiary.
Read → - Lump sums and protections · The allowances · 3 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 → - Lump sums and protections · The allowances · 6 min read
Tax-free cash and the Budget: what the numbers show
The lump sum allowance arithmetic before the 28 October 2026 Budget: £268,275 as a lifetime total, the quarter-of-the-funds limit, and a worked example phased and at once.
Read → - Lump sums and protections · The allowances · 6 min read
Serious ill-health lump sums and the LSDBA
A £950,000 serious ill-health lump sum against the LSDBA: £873,100 tax-free, £76,900 taxed at the member’s marginal rate, and the lump sum allowance untouched.
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Transitional certificates (TTFAC)
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- Lump sums and protections · Transitional certificates (TTFAC) · 4 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 → - Lump sums and protections · Transitional certificates (TTFAC) · 2 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.
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Protected allowances
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- Lump sums and protections · Protected allowances · 3 min read
Fixed protection and the lump sum allowance
What fixed protection gives a client now: £450,000 (FP2012), £375,000 (FP2014) or £312,500 (FP2016) of lump sum allowance, and when later saving can still cancel it.
Read → - Lump sums and protections · Protected allowances · 3 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 by the engine.
Read → - Lump sums and protections · Protected allowances · 6 min read
Enhanced protection and the lump sum allowance
What enhanced protection gives a client now: a £375,000 lump sum allowance, an LSDBA equal to their 5 April 2024 pot, and what can still cancel it.
Read → - Lump sums and protections · Protected allowances · 3 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.
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6 articles · 4 calculators
Taking pension income
Tax on lump sums and drawdown, UFPLS, emergency tax on a first payment and the recycling rules.
Taking money out
- Taking pension income · Taking money out · 4 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 → - Taking pension income · Taking money out · 5 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 → - Taking pension income · Taking money out · 5 min read
UFPLS explained: the uncrystallised funds pension lump sum
The FA 2004 Sch 29 para 4A definition, payment-age conditions, the allowance-capped 25/75 split, the MPAA trigger, and how a UFPLS compares with tax-free cash plus drawdown.
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Emergency tax
Recycling & anti-avoidance
15 articles · 2 calculators
Death benefits and IHT
Nominations and the two-year rule, pensions in the estate from 6 April 2027, the residence nil-rate band taper and the post-75 double charge.
Paying death benefits
- Death benefits and IHT · Paying death benefits · 3 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 → - Death benefits and IHT · Paying death benefits · 4 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.
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Inheritance tax (from 2027)
- Death benefits and IHT · Inheritance tax (from 2027) · 4 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 → - Death benefits and IHT · Inheritance tax (from 2027) · 4 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 → - Death benefits and IHT · Inheritance tax (from 2027) · 4 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.
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Show 7 moreShow fewer articles in Inheritance tax (from 2027)
- Death benefits and IHT · Inheritance tax (from 2027) · 4 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 → - Death benefits and IHT · Inheritance tax (from 2027) · 4 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 → - Death benefits and IHT · Inheritance tax (from 2027) · 3 min read
The road to April 2027: what is law, what is draft, and the deadlines that matter
Royal Assent, the July regulations, the August technical note and the April 2027 start — with the remaining guidance clearly identified.
Read → - Death benefits and IHT · Inheritance tax (from 2027) · 4 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 → - Death benefits and IHT · Inheritance tax (from 2027) · 5 min read
Pension IHT from April 2027: the personal representatives’ step-by-step
Ask each scheme, value the estate, decide on a hold-back, report and pay, then the long-stop: the order of the work, with one worked two-pension estate.
Read → - Death benefits and IHT · Inheritance tax (from 2027) · 4 min read
Pensions and the spouse or civil partner exemption from April 2027
The spouse exemption carries across to pensions from April 2027, with the long-term residence limit and the taper catch worked through one estate.
Read → - Death benefits and IHT · Inheritance tax (from 2027) · 4 min read
Death-in-service benefits and inheritance tax after April 2027
The s.150A(6)(d) test, what it leaves out and what it does not, and one worked estate with a death-in-service lump sum and a refund of contributions.
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The 2027 tax traps, worked
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- Death benefits and IHT · The 2027 tax traps, worked · 4 min read
The 67% pension death-tax trap explained (2027)
Where the 64%/67% headline comes from, what each illustration assumes, and why the enacted offset is not a universal maximum tax rate.
Read → - Death benefits and IHT · The 2027 tax traps, worked · 3 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.
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8 articles · 3 calculators
Tax relief and salary sacrifice
Relief at source, net pay and claiming higher-rate relief; salary sacrifice, its National Insurance saving and the April 2029 cap.
Salary sacrifice
- Tax relief and salary sacrifice · Salary sacrifice · 2 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 relief and salary sacrifice · Salary sacrifice · 4 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 relief and salary sacrifice · Salary sacrifice · 7 min read
How much can you salary sacrifice into a pension?
Four checks before salary sacrifice: minimum pay, the annual allowance tax charge, scheme rules and the 2029 NI-relief cap.
Read → - Tax relief and salary sacrifice · Salary sacrifice · 3 min read
Salary sacrifice and National Insurance: the saving a tax-only comparison leaves out
The National Insurance saving is what makes salary sacrifice better than a personal contribution — and the part a tax-only comparison leaves out.
Read → - Tax relief and salary sacrifice · Salary sacrifice · 3 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.
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Pension tax relief
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- Tax relief and salary sacrifice · Pension tax relief · 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 → - Tax relief and salary sacrifice · Pension tax relief · 6 min read
Net pay vs relief at source: how each pension relief method works
The two relief mechanics side by side, the net-pay shortfall and its FA 2004 s.193A top-up, salary sacrifice as the third route, and the ANI treatment of each.
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23 articles · 4 calculators
Investment bonds
Chargeable event gains, top-slicing relief, certificates and reporting, and the special cases.
Chargeable event gains
- Investment bonds · Chargeable event gains · 9 min read
What is a chargeable event gain? The events, the computations and the timing
The events in ITTOIA 2005 s.484, the three computations at IPTM3500, and the timing rule that can push a March withdrawal into the next tax year.
Read → - Investment bonds · Chargeable event gains · 3 min read
Investment bond 5% withdrawal allowance: the trap 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 → - Investment bonds · Chargeable event gains · 3 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 · Chargeable event gains · 5 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 event gains · 5 min read
Reporting a chargeable event gain to HMRC
The certificate, UK and foreign reporting pages, the onshore basic-rate notional credit, and when a gain requires Self Assessment.
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Top-slicing relief
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- Investment bonds · Top-slicing relief · 5 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 · 6 min read
How top-slicing relief treats the savings allowances, before and after 2021/22
The post-2021/22 PSA recalc, worked end to end on an offshore case: £7,417 relief with the allowance recalculated at the slice, £6,817 with the full-gain figure carried into Step 4.
Read → - Investment bonds · Top-slicing relief · 7 min read
The starting rate for savings, with worked examples, and why it changes inside top-slicing relief
The £5,000 band, how non-savings income erodes it, its order with the personal savings allowance, and the Step-4 recalculation inside top-slicing relief, with three worked examples.
Read → - Investment bonds · Top-slicing relief · 4 min read
Complete years (N) in top-slicing: full surrender vs excess event
Fixing N: from the start on a full surrender, an excess event usually from the last excess event — plus the same-tax-year flag that verifies dates but does not change N.
Read → - Investment bonds · Top-slicing relief · 3 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 · Top-slicing relief · 3 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 → - Investment bonds · Top-slicing relief · 3 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 · Top-slicing relief · 6 min read
How a bond gain affects child benefit and the personal allowance
A £30,000 gain before any TAR on top of a £55,000 salary: the bond tax after top-slicing relief, and the child benefit charge with and without the gain, worked for 2026/27.
Read → - Investment bonds · Top-slicing relief · 3 min read
Can trustees claim top-slicing relief?
Why a trust-held bond gain usually lands on the settlor, when UK trustees lose top-slicing relief, and where bare trusts and personal representatives stand.
Read → - Investment bonds · Top-slicing relief · 5 min read
Investment bond gains and the 2027 savings-rate rise
The enacted 2027/28 savings rates, the onshore credit, the top-slicing steps, event timing across 5 April 2027 and the January return — with what the calculators use today.
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Special cases
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- Investment bonds · Special cases · 4 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 · Special cases · 4 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 · Special cases · 4 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 · Special cases · 4 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 · Special cases · 4 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.
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Case studies
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6 articles · 6 calculators
Income tax traps and wrappers
The 60% and 67.5% bands, the child benefit charge, and how pensions, ISAs and bonds compare on tax.
The £100k / 60% trap
- Income tax traps and wrappers · The £100k / 60% trap · 3 min read
The £100k tax trap, explained: the 60% band and how pension contributions interact with it
The £100k personal-allowance taper, the 60% band (67.5% in Scotland), the childcare cliff, and how a pension contribution changes adjusted net income — with the maths.
Read → - Income tax traps and wrappers · The £100k / 60% trap · 2 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 interacts with it.
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Wrappers, compared
- Income tax traps and wrappers · Wrappers, compared · 5 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 → - Income tax traps and wrappers · Wrappers, compared · 4 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 → - Income tax traps and wrappers · Wrappers, compared · 6 min read
Investment bond vs ISA: two very different tax wrappers
The chargeable-event regime against the ISA exemption: the 5% allowance, the onshore basic-rate credit and top-slicing relief, each stated with its section number and worked in £.
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7 articles · 1 calculator
Care funding
The care means test in all four nations, NHS continuing healthcare, funded nursing care and the home.
The means test
- Care funding · The means test · 4 min read
The care means test: capital limits and tariff income across the four nations
The upper and lower capital limits by nation, the £1-per-£250 tariff worked through, and the Welsh single-limit cliff edge.
Read → - Care funding · The means test · 8 min read
Investment bonds and care-home fees: how the means test treats them
The surrender-value disregard for life-assurance bonds, word for word; how councils decide whether withdrawals are income or capital; and how councils decide whether buying a bond was deprivation of assets.
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NHS funding
- Care funding · NHS funding · 4 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 funding · NHS funding · 4 min read
Funded nursing care: FNC, the HSC trust payment and free personal care, by nation
England’s £267.68 FNC, Scotland’s free personal and nursing care, Northern Ireland’s £100 HSC trust payment, and Wales’s separately evidenced 2026/27 components.
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Your home & property
- Care funding · Your home & property · 4 min read
Your home and care fees: the disregards and deferred payment
The qualifying-occupant and 12-week property disregards, worked through; why a counted home flips a person to self-funder; and how a Deferred Payment Agreement avoids a sale.
Read → - Care funding · Your home & property · 11 min read
Deferred payment agreements for care fees: how interest and the property disregard interact
Who a council must offer a deferred payment agreement to, how the 12-week property disregard hands over to it, how the interest cap is set, the equity limit, administration charges, and repayment on sale or death.
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