Pension top-ups and the new regime

The UK has previously benefited from a benign tax regime for the tax treatment of pensions. The policy of a succession of governments has focused on encouraging pension provision by both employers and individuals through a series of generous tax reliefs.

This has changed through a combination of two broad measures:

• restrictions on the tax reliefs relating to registered pension plans (FA 2004 Part 4 as amended by FA 2011 s 66 and s 67 and Sch 17 and Sch 18); and
• the imposition of tax charges on the funding of unregistered pension...