Pension dilemma

Late application for enhanced protection

The taxpayers were trustees of the RY pension fund. They made late applications for enhanced protection of their pensions against the lifetime allowance. The deadline had been 5 April 2009.

HMRC refused. They appealed saying they had a reasonable excuse because they had relied on a pensions adviser who was expected to make the application on their behalf.

The First-tier Tribunal said it had been reasonable for the taxpayers to rely on their adviser because the pension issues were complicated and the application for enhanced protection required technical computations on the valuations of pensions. However given that they were concerned about the service supplied they had done too little to ensure the matter was being dealt with.

Further they sacked the adviser because they were unhappy with the service but even though they were aware of the April 2009...