Late claim for enhanced lifetime allowance

The taxpayer was a gastroenterologist in the NHS all his working life until he retired and became a self-employed consultant with the NHS in 2006. As well as his NHS pension he had several other private pensions. He appointed a financial adviser because he had no specific pensions knowledge himself. The adviser failed to tell him that his pension funds exceeded the lifetime allowance and that he should claim enhanced protection. This should have been done by 5 April 2009.

Several years later in 2015 the taxpayer became aware of the omission. After appointing a new adviser he made a retrospective claim for the allowance. HMRC refused.

The First-tier Tribunal decided the taxpayer had a reasonable excuse. He was entitled to rely on his adviser who was an expert in the provision of pension advice but had failed to take into account the taxpayer’s pensions in payment...