Everything you NEED to understand about pension tax paperwork (and were too afraid to ask)
I've put together a (sorry quite long) video walking through every bit of NHS pension tax paperwork – what each document is, which ones you actually need, and how to request them. It's free, no sign-up (but feel free to like and subscribe etc to help get the message out!):
▶ Everything you NEED to understand about pension tax paperwork (and were too afraid to ask)
It's 72 minutes, so here are the chapters – jump to whatever's relevant:
- 01:21 – Payslips
- 05:11 – TRS / ABS / ABS-RSS
- 14:14 – Annual Tax Summaries (if you're near tapering)
- 15:33 – State Pension forecast
- 17:08 – Using the documents to model your pension
- 19:58 – NHSP01 Total Reward Statement
- 23:51 – NHSP02 Manual pension estimate
- 27:06 – NHSP03 Pension Savings Statement
- 37:25 – NHSP04 Remediable Pension Savings Statement (RPSS)
- 41:10 – NHSP05 05 Service & Pay extract
- 46:19 – NHSP06 Scheme Pays extract
- 49:21 – HMRC McCloud extract
- 57:32 – Your questions answered
Free request templates for all of these (England & Wales – NHSBSA, plus the HMRC McCloud extract): https://goldstonepenfintech.com/templates – fill in your details once and every request email is pre-completed. Nothing you type is sent anywhere; it stays in your browser.
⚠️ Annual allowance – an important warning
I've had several reports of doctors being told that if they haven't received a Pension Savings Statement by 6 October, they can assume they haven't exceeded their annual allowance.
That's simply not true. The schemes are way behind with admin, and an automatic statement only covers part of the picture anyway (it knows nothing about your tapering, carry forward or other pensions).
My advice:
- If you're a high earner (roughly £90k+ pensionable) or your pay has grown quickly, request a PSS "on demand" every year. The scheme has to provide it within 3 months – or by 6 October if you ask before 6 July – so ask around early July each year.
- Haven't had your 25/26 PSS? Request one now. England & Wales: NHSP03 template. Scotland: ask SPPA. Northern Ireland: ask HSC Pension Service. Asking today gets you to early January – not much time before the 31 January self assessment deadline.
- Ask even if they say they can't do it in time. If it doesn't arrive, use the scheme's formal complaints process. If that fails, consider escalating to the scheme's Chief Executive, your MP, or the Pensions Ombudsman (you'll need to have exhausted the scheme's complaints process first).
- Keep a paper trail – request and complain by email and keep copies. You may be entitled to compensation, and you'll need to show you asked properly.
The scheme's legal deadlines are on GOV.UK.
Scotland: if you used to receive pension tax letters, check your SPPA Engage portal – several people have found statements sitting there that they were never told about.
Turning the paperwork into numbers
Once you've got the documents, the hard part is doing something with them. We've built a tool (PLUS) that reads payslips, TRS/ABS, PSS, RPSS, 05 extracts and the HMRC extract and pulls the figures into our pension modellers in seconds – demo here at 17:08. It's a paid add-on, but everything else in the video and all the templates are free.
Happy to answer questions in the comments.