Work out your headroom now, not in November.
A contribution paid and elected before the deadline can be set against last year’s income.
Book a first meetingMost tax planning has to be done before the money is earned. Pension contributions are the exception, and it is a genuinely useful one.
If you are self-employed, a proprietary director, or anyone else who files a Form 11, you can make a pension contribution now and elect to have it set against last year’s income. The relief comes off a bill you have already run up. Nothing else in the Irish system works quite like that.
The dates that matter
To backdate the relief, the contribution has to be paid and the election has to be made by the relevant date. Both. A payment on its own does not do it, and this is where people come unstuck.
How much you can put in
Relief is limited to a percentage of your earnings, and the percentage rises with age: 15% under 30, rising through the bands to 40% from 60. It is calculated on earnings capped at €115,000.
So somebody aged 45 earning €90,000 can get relief on up to €22,500 for the year. At the higher rate that contribution costs them €13,500 after relief, and €22,500 lands in the pension.
Three things that go wrong
If you are on PAYE
This particular deadline is mostly about people who file returns. If your contributions come through payroll, relief is usually given at source as you go. It is still worth checking whether you have headroom, and whether your employer would match more than you are currently paying in.
Work out your headroom now rather than in November. Our tax relief calculator will do it in about twenty seconds, and if it turns out you have room worth using, there is still time to do something about it properly.
Open the tax relief calculator →Half an hour, no charge. We will work out your headroom and handle the election properly.
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