Pay tax as a pension scheme administrator

As a pension scheme administrator of a registered pension scheme you must send pension scheme reports and pay tax charges to HMRC.

A payment must meet specific conditions for it to be authorised. If it does not, it will be an unauthorised payment.

Read guidance on how to deal with charges arising from an unauthorised payment.

You must submit your return or event report and pay any tax within 45 calendar days of the end of the tax period.

If a reportable event occurs within a tax year, you must submit your event report by 31 January following the end of the tax year when the event occurred.

If a scheme has been wound up you must submit the event report within 3 months of the date the scheme wound up or by the 31 January deadline, whichever is earlier.

If the deadline is on a weekend or bank holiday, make sure your payment reaches HMRC by the end of the previous working day.

If you do not pay by the deadline, you may need to pay a penalty, interest or both.

You need your 14-character reference number starting with X.

If you use the wrong reference number your payment may be delayed or used to pay a different tax bill that you owe. If your payment has paid the wrong tax bill, you can contact Pension schemes general enquiries to ask for your payment to be moved.

You can pay online using one of the following methods:

You can pay by approving a payment through your online bank account by selecting the ‘pay by bank account’ option.

You will be directed to sign in to your online or mobile banking account to approve your payment.

You will need to have your online banking details to hand to pay this way.

The payment is usually instant but can take up to 2 hours to show in your bank account.

Paying by debit or corporate credit card