Tax specialists Cornerstone Tax say that tens of thousands of pension savers may be owed a combined £6bn due to them overpaying stamp duty on transfers of commercial property into their pension schemes.

The transfers, they say, may have triggered Stamp Duty Land Tax – despite the fact that the transactions may have been exempt.

Cornerstone believe that up to 75,000 people could be affected, having paid stamp duty when a commercial property was transferred into their Small Self-Administered Schemes (SSASs) and Self-Invested Personal Pensions (SIPPs). Already, they say, they have reclaimed the stamp duty on behalf of over 50 clients,

Those affected include business owners who moved their commercial properties into pension schemes.

Mistakes they say, were made when solicitors assumed that stamp duty must be paid on the transfer of property from multiple owners into SIPPs or SSASs, which they say is not technically required.

Cornerstone say that the problem arises because pension providers aren’t necessarily up to speed on the intricacies of stamp duty: it is a complex area of tax law, with not all conveyancing solicitors knowing about many of the different types of reliefs available for stamp duty.

There is however a caveat: anyone who believes they might have unwittingly overpaid must make a claim within four years of the completion of the property transaction into their pension.

f you think your retirement income might be affected by these changes, it’s easy to adjust your calculations by changing the inflation figure in your RetireEasy LifePlan that you think your pensions will increase by each year.

That way you can be sure to have a much more accurate picture of the income you can expect to enjoy… and make any necessary changes to your plans in good time.

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