Pension contribution tax relief.

Ak84

So in December 2020 I paid a once off sum to my pension to get tax relief for my 2019 accounts. According to my accountants advice.

The revenue is now saying that I could not Claim relief because the latest date for such payments was 31st Oct 2020.

But with the later filing deadline due to Covid, was this pension contributions date not pushed back also?

ari101

Two initial thoughts; were you paying and filing online via ROS and did you do so on time (i.e. on or before revised deadline; 10 Dec I think it was)?

If both those were in order, I am surprised, but don't have any specific similar experience to compare it to.

Ak84

My accountant done all. But. It was definitely after the 10th December when I wrote the cheque. Around the 20th I'd guess.

ari101

You are technically required to both file and pay (i.e. arrange/approve bank trf/card payment) via ROS by the deadline to take advantage of the extension. So Revenue will have likely deemed you either late, or not making electronic payment, or both, and as a result the official due date applied to you for 2019 reverts to 31 Oct 2020 unfortunately.

Pawwed Rig

The good news is that unless you are maximising your contributions every year you can just assign the top up to 2020 instead

Ak84

Yeah I should be able to use it for 2020 tax now. But I presume I have to pay a lot of tax for 2019 now. The pension contribution was over 8000 euro.

Pawwed Rig

Yeah the tax will be 8k x40% = €3,200 (assuming that you are on higher rate of tax).