Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 15
15
We were concerned that the lack of available information on some large reliefs had meant...
Conclusion
We were concerned that the lack of available information on some large reliefs had meant that it was not possible for HMRC and HM Treasury to know whether all of those who were expected to benefit had been able to do so and whether a relief is working. We heard from Standard Life Aberdeen, who told us that lower-paid workers in specific groups, who most needed tax relief on their pensions contributions, were at most risk of missing out on this tax relief.25 The financial services company Royal London estimated that around 1.75 million low-paid and part-time workers, auto-enrolled into employer pensions, were missing out on tax relief on their pension contributions.26 Around three quarters of these workers are women.
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government
Not Addressed
2.4 The Government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: December 2021 2.5 HMRC will publish data showing who is benefitting from pensions reliefs to the extent data is available. HMRC publishes annual statistics showing the total costs of pensions tax relief. Estimates are necessarily based on a combination of data sources, listed below and published in the document Background and Methodology: a) contributions to occupational schemes from the ONS’ Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings; b) contributions to personal pensions taken from data provided to HMRC by pension providers. c) pension scheme’s investment income supplied by the ONS; and d) administrative data held by HMRC on Real Time Information payments made by pension schemes’ 2.6 HMRC publishes information on contributions to personal pensions based on data reported by pension schemes for administrative purposes. There is no additional statistical burden placed on pension providers to report employer contributions so tables showing contributions are not split by gender, age, country and region. 2.7 There is insufficient data available to produce statistics on all protected characteristics. Any disaggregate of the cost of pension tax relief is reliant on data reported to HMRC, data collected by third parties, and organisations such as the ONS. The government is working towards improving the information that it publishes on pensions tax reliefs. 2.8 Equalities impacts are considered throughout policy development and are published as part of this process, either as part of consultations or in tax information and impact notes.