Readers’ forum: Pension charge

My client has relevant self-employed earnings of £50 000 and made pension contributions of £80 000 for 2015-16. She has therefore over-contributed on her pensions by £30 000 gross. This is within the annual allowance limits. HMRC has in effect contributed £6 000 more than it should have at source into the pot. The pension provider is refusing to refund the amount over-contributed saying it is too late. Would there be a £6 000 additional tax charge on the tax return in order to pay back HMRC?

Is there anything that can be done to reduce the charge? We have changed the client’s year-end to increase the profit but this has not reduced the additional tax charge to nil due to the overlap profit. There are also other commercial reasons for the change in year-end. If an adviser had told her to make the contribution would she have...