TAPERED ANNUAL ALLOWANCE – NHS

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TAPERED ANNUAL ALLOWANCE – NHS

The Tapered Annual Allowance was introduced from 6 April 2016. It has caused considerable problems for members of the NHS pension scheme in terms of excess tax charges due to the formulas used in the calculations.

Admittedly having a good pension is a nice problem to have, but when faced with an excess of say £60,000 (by calculation) this generates a tax bill of typically £27,000. I have seen some that are much higher.

Therefore, many Consultants and senior NHS staff have really been forced to reduce their sessions (NHS pay) or take a break from or leave the pension scheme entirely – which is nuts. This is essentially a tax charge on money that has not yet been paid (it is paid at retirement).

After much badgering, a compromise has been reached for the current tax year 2019/20. In that a political promise has been made that the excess tax charge will permit the pension scheme to pay the charge and the employing NHS Trust will pay now compensate for this when the pension starts (my short version). This has now been confirmed for the English and Welsh NHS Pension Scheme.

Superficial Fix

There is as yet, nothing NEW stated about the 2020/21 tax year (there are restrospective juggling adjustments that can be made towards the end of the year, but these are daft) – but we do have a Budget coming in March, so we hope the ludicrous Tapered Annual Allowance will be scrapped then. However, this ought to apply to everyone, not simply NHS employees.

The Annual Allowance – Simplified, Quick Overview

In very simple terms the Annual Allowance is a maximum of £40,000. This is the total that can be paid into pensions by you and your employer. It reduces by £1 for every £2 of income over £150,000. The allowance reduces to a minimum of £10,000 once an income of £210,000 is earned. In short, you can invest more into your ISA. However, for those in final salary schemes and the NHS in particular, the calculation is not really about how much is paid in, but how much the pension grows by and then multiplied by 16. So, if your pension increased by £1500 for the year that’s £24,000. Not the 14.5% of salary you must pay to be in the scheme. Its way more complex than this, but to save time, go with my summary.

It Is Political – Government and the NHS always are

In view of the impact that pension rules are having on senior NHS staff and their ability to work their normal hours, and with winter bringing the usual rise in demand for NHS services, NHS England and now NHS Wales and NHS Improvement have decided to take exceptional action. An extract from the announcement is given below:

‘This action will mean that:

· Clinicians who are members of the NHS Pension Scheme and face a tax charge in respect of work undertaken this year (2019/20) as a result of breaching their annual pension allowance will be able to defer this charge (by choosing ‘Scheme Pays’ on their pension form) meaning that they don’t have to worry about paying the charge now out of their own pocket.

and:

· The NHS employer will make a contractually binding commitment to pay them a corresponding amount on retirement, ensuring that they are fully compensated in retirement for the effect of the 2019/20 Scheme Pays deduction on their income from the NHS Pension Scheme in retirement.

Watch Out For…

Clinicians are therefore now immediately able to take on additional shifts or sessions without worrying about an annual allowance charge on their pension for 2019/20.

Local NHS employers are being asked to actively promote this development to affected staff as they plan for extra capacity and staffing over the winter period.’

This measure will only apply to the 2019/20 tax year as new flexibilities are being introduced from 2020/21.

Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA

You can read more articles about Pensions, Wealth Management, Retirement, Investments, Financial Planning and Estate Planning on my blog which gets updated every week. If you would like to talk to me about your personal wealth planning and how we can make you stay wealthier for longer then please get in touch by calling 08000 736 273 or email info@solomonsifa.co.uk

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Retiring Doctors and GPs?

Lately I have found myself between a rock and a hard place when advising my medical clients. Through no fault of their own, many long-serving Consultants are being punished due to poorly thought through rules about the Lifetime Allowance and Annual Allowance. Whilst on the one hand they are “lucky” to have large pension funds, that are by comparison “brilliant” the fault of successive Governments to fail to do their sums is hardly their fault. Indeed if ever there was an appropriate use of the term “moving the goalposts” it is surely fitting for what has happened to public sector pensions, particularly the NHS Pension Scheme, which was revised in 2008 and has now morphed into the 2015 Scheme (from the start of this month).

The changes have meant that members have to guess when they might best retire… in some specialities that is “a challenge”, most have to pay more, work longer and accrue less, whilst, (if reports are to be believed) having to cope with a greater workload, politically motivated “targets” and an under resourced organisation.

As a result of blown 2012 Fixed Protection and further reductions to the Lifetime Allowance, many of those that I work with are somewhat fed up with the powerlessness that they feel in relation to their pension rights. I cannot speak of widespread disatisfaction, but certainly those that I know within the medical community (quite a number) are “cheesed off”. The way benefits are calculated are ludicrously complicated and often mean that extra taxes are payable – through no fault of the doctor – simply by being in the scheme and having an increase in pay which is out of sync with the defined limits. I’m not talking small taxes here – but excess amounts that are deemed to have been paid as income, even though this is not the case in reality (it isn’t paid as income)…

According to the BMA, a poll of over 15,000 GP’s indicated that 34% of them expected to retire within the next 5 years. Statistics out of context can be used to support any argument, so a headline such as this one needs some unpicking.

According to the GMC, there are about 60,000 licensed doctors on the GP Register for the whole of the UK. The GP register has been around since 2006 and requires that all practicing GPs keep their license and records up to date. This figure is for the whole of the UK and does include some possible double-counting as some specialists are GPs and vice versa. In England there are 40,584 GPs and according to data published last month by the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC), for the first time there are now more practicing female GPs (20,435) than male GPs (19,801). In any event, a suvery of 15,000 is therefore a survey of about 37% of the entire workforce by headcount… which is a significant survey, one might say a very solid survey, certainly when considered as a percentage of the relevant population – unlike the current political polls or those TV adverts for women’s products that claim high rates of satisfaction (so small that it is questionable if the people conducting the survey actually left their office building)… so this survey, unlike some, is rather “worth it”. Of course, not all GPs work full-time, the figures are a headcount, not a precise allocation of full-time GPs, the full-time equivalent number of GPs is 36,920. If trainees and retainers are excluded, then the full-time equivalent is 32,628.

By way of “hard facts” here are some NHS statistics to consider, I have taken these from the HSCIC report, which frankly could make the statistics much clearer… anyway…

1,387,692 Total NHS workforce (1,187,606 FTE)

of which

701,872 are professionally qualified clinical staff (623,050 FTE)… 50.5%

42,733 Consultants (40,443 FTE)…. 3.0% of NHS staff

55,079 Hospital Doctors (53,786 FTE)…. 3.9% of NHS staff

37,078 Managers (35,164 FTE)….2.6%

36,920 General Practitioners (32,628 FTE)… 2.6%

377,191 Nurses, including GP nurses (328,577 FTE)….27.1%

The problems of staffing within GP surgeries looks set to continue and frankly, if politicians contrinue to play havoc with the pensions (Lifetime Allowance and Annual Allowance nonsense) of doctors and nurses, they may well also be considering earlier retirement. Future PM, you have been warned…

Dominic Thomas