Our records show that you are impacted by 2015 Remedy (2015 Remedy (McCloud) - Civil Service Pension Scheme).  

As a result, your benefits were ‘rolled back’ (reverted) into your Legacy scheme (classic, classic plus, premium or nuvos) for the Remedy period (1 April 2015 – 31 March 2022) and your Pension Input Amounts (PIAs) have been recalculated during that period. They have also been calculated for 2022/2023 as you were not provided with these previously.

Schemes are required to provide members with Pension Input Amounts (PIAs), which show the increase or growth in the value of benefits over a set period. 

See the Remedy PSS website page for information and support video explaining your Remedy PSS

Your revised PIA(s) have been recalculated based on Legacy service up to 31/03/2022 and alpha service from 01/04/2022. 

No, your PIA will only be recalculated once. At retirement you will be given two options in respect of your Remedy service, and we will calculate your PIA for the year of your retirement based on which option calculates the lower PIA, irrespective of the option you take. If you chose the Legacy scheme, your PIA would remain unchanged.

All members need to calculate whether a charge is due, and whether any past charges have changed. You can do this using the HMRC Public Service Pension Adjustment calculator.

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) have developed an online service to help you calculate these changes to your pension tax charges. It'll tell you whether you’re due a refund of tax you’ve previously paid, or if you’ve got new tax charges to pay. It'll also tell you if neither is the case, in which case you won’t need to take any further action. The service walks you through a series of steps and automatically transmits your information to your pension scheme, where necessary.

What you need to do:

1. Carefully review your Remedy PSS and consider what it means for you
2. Read the overview on the adjustment service GOV.UK page and HMRC document (information on what you will need and guidance on the questions you will be asked) which is linked above the Start now button. There’s also a step-by-step video to show you what the process involves on this page
3. You need to make sure you have all the necessary information to hand before you start, which includes: 

   • Details of your total taxable income.

   • The Pension Input Amounts on your Remedy PSS.

   • Details of your personal allowance from 2015/2016 to 2022/2023. You can find this on your ‘P60’ for each year. You can also find the last 5 years of these in the HMRC app. If you can’t find the information, contact your employer.

   • Self-Assessment tax returns, if you filed any.

4. Complete the 'calculate your public service pension adjustment service' by 31 January 2025, or by 3 months from date of issue if you receive your Remedy PSS after 1 November 2024.

   If you’re due a tax refund for 2019/2020 to 2021/2022 (inclusive), you’ll be able to provide your bank details via the service so HMRC can pay it to you directly. If you are due a refund for earlier years, or need to reduce a past Scheme Pays charge, your scheme will compensate you. If you have a tax charge to pay, you'll have the option of paying this through your pension scheme out of your accrued benefits, rather than out of your own pocket - this is known as ‘Scheme Pays.’

   Members shouldn't need to complete Scheme Pays quote requests forms, as HMRC will provide all the required information to MyCSP to adjust an existing Scheme Pays debit, or to set up a new debit.

   You should not report any new tax charges for the tax years 2015/2016 – 2022/2023 through Self-Assessment, you need to use the calculate your public service pension adjustment service. 

More information and support

How the public service pensions remedy affects your pension

You can contact HMRC’s specialist team at: publicservicepensionsremedy@hmrc.gov.uk or on 0300 123 1079 (select option 1) for help with information about your taxable income, Self-Assessment returns or personal allowance for previous years.

Yes, you can still retire before you have acted regarding any outstanding tax charges. You can still use Scheme Pays after you have retired, for any additional tax charge, and any necessary adjustments to your pension can be made after you have applied for this.

Previous PSSs were issued based on the data held at the time. You may have queried some of the data that caused you to breach previously, and this has now been corrected. Our records do, however, still show that you received a PSS during the Remedy period. 

If you didn't have a tax charge previously and this remains the case, you don't need to take any further action. 

These will be offset against any new tax charge. If you no longer have a charge, you could be due compensation and the HMRC will inform you if this is the case.

Out of scope years (now called Compensation Period) - 2015-2016, 2016-2017, 2017-2018, 2018-2019

• Where Annual Allowance Tax Charge (AATC) was paid via Scheme Pays (SP), schemes will make indirect compensation available to members by adjusting how much of the member's rights are to account for their Annual Allowance Tax Charge (AATC) through Scheme Pays (making a pension adjustment accordingly). 
• Where the Annual Allowance Tax Charge (AATC) was paid by a member direct to HMRC, the Scheme will return this sum (plus interest) to the member as compensation through a payment back to the member. The compensation and interest are not taxable. 
• Schemes should not claim back the tax from the HMRC for out of scope years.
• After review of the member's inputs, HMRC will provide details via SDES on how to apportion owed compensation to particular out of scope remedy years so that the correct actuarial factors are applied and how to establish the overall "netted" off position for the member across all out of scope years.

In scope years (now called Tax Administration Framework) - 2019-2020, 2020-2021, 2021-2022

• Where originally paid directly to HMRC, you will need to claim back from HMRC and HMRC will refund it (this is known as direct compensation).
• Where originally paid via Scheme Pays, your Scheme Administrator will adjust the amount of pension paid to you.

Once you have entered your Pension Input Amounts (PIAs) using the HMRC Pension Adjustment Service calculator, it will show you if there are any tax charges relating to the period. If there are, you must ensure that you submit your inputs to report this to HMRC.

You should then follow HMRC guidelines for paying any tax due.

You can pay your Annual Allowance Tax Charge (AATC) by cash directly to HMRC or you can elect to use Scheme Pays.

You could have overpaid a tax charge if you previously paid an Annual Allowance Tax Charge in the Remedy period and, in the same year:

1. The tax charge now due is less
2. You no longer exceed the Annual Allowance limit and there is no longer a charge due

If you’ve worked out you have overpaid tax charges in the Remedy period, you should submit your inputs into the Public Service Pension Adjustment Calculator to report it to HMRC.

HMRC will assess your pension inputs and provide information to the scheme regarding any compensation due.

There are many scenarios, and some will require further data to be provided from the ceding scheme, in particular where the transfer included new scheme remediable service from the ceding scheme (we will use data based on Legacy only in the Remedy period). 

If we have all the data we need, then we will treat any remediable service in Civil Service Pension Scheme (CSPS) as Legacy and any transferred in remediable service as Legacy for PIA purposes. However, if there are elements in the transfer relating to Member Voluntary Contributions (MVCs) (e.g., added pension) then these will have to adopt the same treatment as alpha added pension, i.e., the value remains there for PIA purposes.

These relate specifically to transfers in and added pension. The rights from these remain in alpha (and count in the years following) until the point of conversion which will take place in the future, at a date which is yet to be determined. 

Once my added pension/transfer in etc has been converted to PCSPS will my PIA need recalculating again? 

No, but the converted benefits will count in subsequent PIAs as Legacy.

If no, what if it would have reduced my tax charge as PIA is now lower once converted?

It wouldn’t have, as the conversion is not retrospective.

If you’ve worked out you have overpaid tax charges in the Remedy period, you should submit your inputs into the Public Service Pension Adjustment Calculator to report it to HMRC.

HMRC will assess your pension inputs and provide information to the scheme regarding any compensation due.

If I have data changes that cause previous PIA to be recalculated after the conversion, what basis will my PIA be re-calculated on?

Your revised Remedy PIA was based on the data held at the time and the latest PIA supersedes this. 

If you are due to receive a Pensions Savings Statement (PSS) for the 2023/2024 tax year, you should already have been sent it separately. There are some PSS that have been delayed due to some members not yet having received their Remedy PSS. In these cases your PSS will be sent to you separately, after your Remedy Pension Savings Statement (Remedy PSS) has been issued. 

What you will need to do in relation to your 2023/2024 PSS is different to your Remedy PSS, and you can find out more about this by visiting the 2023/2024 Pensions Savings Statement page.

The information and support we have made available via the Remedy PSS webpages, along with guidance that HMRC provides as part of its Public Service Pension Adjustment Service, will help you to assess your tax position for the period covered by the Remedy PSS.

If you need additional help in assessing your tax position you may choose to consult a financial professional. You can apply for a reimbursement for the cost of this advice, up to a maximum of £500, if you meet the criteria.

We will reimburse you for such a fee if the following applies:

• You received a Remedy PSS, and,
• You have either previously paid an Annual Allowance charge for a Remedy Period year, that has changed, or you have a new tax charge to pay for a Remedy Period year or for 2022/2023.

Please note that if you ask us to reimburse your fees you must provide us with copies of invoices or receipts as evidence of the costs you incurred.

If you want to know more about reimbursement of fees and the points above apply to you, please email us on pss@mycsp.co.uk to begin your claim. If you have any questions, please include them in your email and we’ll get back to you.

You may notice that some years prior to 2015 have Pension Input Periods (PIPs) are based on the calendar year and that for 2015/16 there are figures for two Pension Input Amounts (PIAs) listed for two PIPs. This is because HMRC changed Pension Input Periods to match the tax year (6 April to 5 April) from 6 April 2016 onwards. Prior to this change, Pension Input Periods counted toward the tax year in which they ended. For example, the Pension Input Period running from 1 January 2013 - 31 December 2013 ended in tax year 2013/14 and so counts toward that tax year.

When you come to use the HMRC calculator, you don’t need to worry about what time period the Pension Input Period was, the left hand ‘Year’ column corresponds with the fields you’ll be asked to input the figures in that row into the calculator . For the 2015/2016 year, you’ll notice figures for two Pension Input Periods and you’ll find that the HMRC calculator has two corresponding fields to enable you to input both Pension Input Amount figures provided.

The Civil Service Pension Scheme has engaged with HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) and agreed the following guidance:

Who is affected:

• If you have not been sent a Pension Saving Statement 23/24 (PSS 23/24) but are due to receive one, we wrote to you in October 2024 to inform you that your PSS 23/24 would be issued late. This issue only affects a small number of members.
• If you have never completed Self-Assessment and never had an Annual Allowance (AA) tax charge, you do not need to take any action until you receive your PSS 23/24.

Action you have to take if you think you will have an Annual Allowance charge in 2023/24:

• Where you do not have your PSS 23/24 and therefore don’t have confirmation of your 2023/24 Pension Input Amount (PIA) you should include a provisional figure in your Self-Assessment tax return and submit as normal before the 31 January 2025 deadline. When you receive your PIA for tax year 2023/2024, you should then update your Self-Assessment tax return accordingly – this needs to be done within 12 months of the 31 January 2025 deadline.
• We appreciate it will be very difficult to estimate your tax liability, particularly as you will not have any PIAs from before 2023/24 available to calculate carry-forward. You should calculate the estimated charge to the best of your ability and keep records of the calculation. There is further guidance about how to estimate your provisional tax charge at: https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/self-assessment-manual/sam121190
• If you submit your tax return with a provisional figure by the 31 January deadline then even if the provisional figure is incorrect, you will not receive a penalty.

Action you have to take if you think you will not have an Annual Allowance charge in 2023/24

• Where you have reasonable grounds to think that you have not breached the £60k standard AA amount, so don’t submit a Self-Assessment tax return by the 31 January 2025 deadline but when you receive your PSS 23/24 you have an Annual Allowance charge, you shouldn’t face a penalty – but this will be for HMRC to determine.
• If you only complete Self-Assessment because of your pension tax liability and will not incur an Annual Allowance charge for 2023/2024, you should inform HMRC that you no longer need to submit a Self-Assessment return. Information on how to do that can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/self-assessment-tax-returns/no-longer-need-to-send-a-tax-return

Correcting your provisional Self-Assessment figure

• When you correct your Self-Assessment provisional figure, if the final figure is higher than the provisional figure you will be charged interest if you pay the charge directly to HMRC. The interest rate is the Bank of England base rate plus 2.5%. If you pay by Scheme Pays there will not be an interest charge, and the Scheme Pays debit will be amended.
• Further information on updating a Self-Assessment return can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/self-assessment-tax-returns/corrections

You might think your statement is incorrect, when it says that you have an input value of £0, and you were in the pension scheme. This is common for members with final salary pension when inflation is higher than salary growth and is not an error.

You might think the pension input value is too high, but high values (potentially even 6 figure values) are common in final salary schemes when a member gets a significant pay increase, eg, promotion. This is because the increase to pensionable earnings applies to all the pension you have accrued in your final salary pension, so the increase in value is often very considerable. It is common that pension inputs are more than an individual’s annual salary following a promotion or large pay increase.

It is likely you breached the Annual Allowance in 2022/2023 based on alpha membership, but you no longer breach having been rolled back into the legacy scheme. As PSS were not issued in 2022/2023, you may be not aware that you initially breached the Annual Allowance. This is why you have been sent a RPSS, you do not need to do anything.