Self assessment return.

[sg31]

I'm just doing my return for 19/20 online and I have hit a problem. I hope someone can help because I think I'm having a mental block on something that should be simple.

I receive a small pension from an employer I worked for many years ago. It only amoounts to about £6000 per annum, the only problem is I can't seem to find where to enter it. I've been through 'Tailor your return' and one question is about UK pensions so I said I received one. When I get to 'UK pensions annuities and other state benefits' it seems to just relate to state pensions.

I don't receive state pension until next year. I don't know whether to put my employers pension in there. It doesn't look like I should but I've been through the rest of the form and there doesn't appear to be anywhere else to put it.

I can't decide if I should have done something else in 'Tailor you return' or whether to put it under the bit about UK pensions. I've looked back at last year and I seem to have put it in UK pensions, I'm just not sure I did it right last year.

I've been trying to contact HMRC but to no avail, no web chat and I've waited on the phone for over half an hour.

Please help.

[robbelg]

Bizarrely it goes in as Employment

Rob

[tjh290633]

Looking at last year's return, it went into the appropriate box(es) on page 3/16 (TR3), box 11.

TJH

[genou]

I've been through 'Tailor your return' and one question is about UK pensions so I said I received one. When I get to 'UK pensions annuities and other state benefits' it seems to just relate to state pensions.

Please help.

You're not going far enough into the section. Tell it you receive 0 state pension and choose next. There's another page for private pensions.

[staffordian]

I'm pretty certain when I've done this (and I too receive an occupational pension but not a state pension) I've found that the pension section has separate boxes for state and other pensions. I don't recall having to put it in an employment section as when I tailor my return I say I don't need section 1; the employment pages.

Looking at the pdf of my 19/20 return, there is a section called 'UK pensions, annuities and other State Benefits received'.

Within this, box 8 is for State Pension,and box 11 is for pensions (other than State pensions), retirement annuities and taxable lump sums treated as pensions.

[fca2019]

UK pensions section. Box 11 for pension and if tax taken off box 12.

[XFool]

UK pensions section. Box 11 for pension and if tax taken off box 12.

Yep. Did it today and have PDF copy. As stated:

UK pensions, annuities and other State benefits received

11. Pensions (other than State Pension), retirement annuities and taxable triviality payments - the gross amount. Tax taken off goes in box 11: £
12. Tax taken off box 11: £

[sg31]

Thanks for the replies but it just isn't working for me.

In 'tailor your return' I've ticked the box 'UK Pensions, Annuities or state benefits'. as I move on to fill in your return Section 4 comes up 'UK pension and other state benefits (Page 1 of 2) '.

The first page says 'You have said that you received a UK pension and other state benefits in the tax year 6 April 2019 to 5 April 2020. Please complete the following question(s).' The first box is ''State Pension', if I put '0' in there which is true I get an error message

'The amount entered for 'State Pension - amount you were entitled to receive in the year, not the weekly or 4 weekly amount' must be greater than 0 (zero) or blank. Please amend.' It just will not accept nil as an answer.

I can see on the second page to this section there's a box for employer pensions and also boxes for other state benefits. It won't accept nil or 0.00 in any of these state benefit boxes. It gives me an option of deleting the whole section but if I do I don't have anywhere to enter my employer pension.

At the end of the day I think I'm going to have to contact HMRC but I just want to make sure it's just not me doing something stupid. I've not received a penny from the state in any benefit of any kind.

[swill453]

'The amount entered for 'State Pension - amount you were entitled to receive in the year, not the weekly or 4 weekly amount' must be greater than 0 (zero) or blank. Please amend.' It just will not accept nil as an answer.

So leave it blank, like it says.

Scott.

[sg31]

'The amount entered for 'State Pension - amount you were entitled to receive in the year, not the weekly or 4 weekly amount' must be greater than 0 (zero) or blank. Please amend.' It just will not accept nil as an answer.

So leave it blank, like it says.

Scott.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Simple all sorted. I was reading it as 'it couldn't be 0, or blank. Not it it couldn't be zero, it had to be something Or blank.

Hangs head in shame.

[staffordian]

'The amount entered for 'State Pension - amount you were entitled to receive in the year, not the weekly or 4 weekly amount' must be greater than 0 (zero) or blank. Please amend.' It just will not accept nil as an answer.

So leave it blank, like it says.

Scott.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Simple all sorted. I was reading it as 'it couldn't be 0, or blank. Not it it couldn't be zero, it had to be something Or blank.

Hangs head in shame.

Stumped me a bit the first time I came across it.

I may be wrong, but I'm sure I remember other boxes where you do have to enter a zero, just to add to the confusion

[XFool]

So leave it blank, like it says.

Scott.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Simple all sorted. I was reading it as 'it couldn't be 0, or blank. Not it it couldn't be zero, it had to be something Or blank.

Hangs head in shame.

Stumped me a bit the first time I came across it.

I may be wrong, but I'm sure I remember other boxes where you do have to enter a zero, just to add to the confusion

Just another of the quirks of the HMRC online SA software! If you look carefully at the quoted text in my post - copied directly from the PDF saved version of my return - it doesn't quite make sense. No mistake of mine.

The above zero quirk, while not in the pensions section, was what originally tripped me up when I first attempted SA online, causing me to have to ring up HMRC for help. There are still places where I feel I am 'flying blind' with no real understanding of what is going on and, at least to me, the online explanations either do not make sense or seem confusing and contradictory.

Then there is that old chestnut about how you actually enter the yearly amount for your State Pension - which is based on a weekly statement from the DWP! I ignore what it says online and just enter the total I received in the Tax year - this usually agrees with the HMRC Tax Coding amount but often disagrees with the DWP sourced HMRC SA pre-entered figure!

[scotia]

I may be wrong, but I'm sure I remember other boxes where you do have to enter a zero, just to add to the confusion

Correct!

[Alaric]

Simple all sorted. I was reading it as 'it couldn't be 0, or blank. Not it it couldn't be zero, it had to be something Or blank.

I think that pops up elsewhere, possibly in other HMRC stuff. It can insist on <null> rather than blank (input the space bar) or zero (0). It's not a particularly fault friendly way of validating the input data.