Private pensions and CSA

Hi all

I am new to this site and have come to get some advice and support.

I have been paying around £300 per month for the past 3 years or so for my child. In the next month or two I will be stepping into a new role which has a substantial salary increase (around a £15k rise from current salary).

This will of course impact my child maintenance payments, I am happy to up the monthly amount based on revised CSA calculations, I have a decent relationship with my ex and of course would want additional income to help go towards raising my daughter.

However I also need to start thinking about my own future, I don’t have much in the way of savings and am therefore looking to open up a private pension. The questions I have for this forum are:

• What is a reasonable amount for me to put into my pension each month – my net salary will be around £2700 per month, is it reasonable for me to pay in £500 per month, or would the CSA think this too much? This would leave me with around £2200 per month which is more than enough to live on.
• What evidence would the CSA want to see to prove that these payments are going in? I’m under the impression that pension statements usually come around annually, so would it be a case that CSA have to take my word for it or do I have to submit evidence?


Thank you

You can pay as much as you like in. It would be up to them to prove that you couldn''t live on the money left if your ex applied for a variation.

If you pay £15k per year in you will be able to pay the same and live the same lifestyle as you did before.

Might be worth asking your employer if you can do it as a salary sacrifice too and save NI as well as tax.

Thanks WYSPECIAL

I see, like I said my ex and I are on fairly friendly terms but as we all know that may not last forever. From my perspective £500 contribution to pension would still leave mean i end up paying £30-40 extra per month, and infact having looked at the csa calculator - there is not much difference between paying £400 or £500 into a pension pot.

Do you have any idea of evidence requirements as this wouldnt be shown in wage slips. I can send pension statements but they are recieved annually (most of the time). I will also speak to my employer about salary sacrifice - thanks for the tip I wasnt aware of this

They will accept letter from pension provider showing your direct debit amount.

There are some pension contribution calculators online which allow you to enter a desired retirement income and then show how much money you need to contribute to hit this target. I''ve linked one below, there are better ones out there but I can''t remember the links

www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/tools/pension-calculator

You could use information from one of these sites to justify any pension contributions.