Asking employer to increase 'er pension contribution

I am 36 yrs old and currently pay 20% of my own salary into the company pension scheme. My employer tops this up with another 5%.

I would like to pay more into my pension in as tax efficient way as possible for me.
My understanding is that I can only get tax relief of 42% on no more then the 20% I already pay in. Is this true?

What options do I have for paying more into the pension scheme?

The 2 things I was thinking about were:
1.Ask my employer to increase his contribution by say 10k per annum and reduce my annual salary by this amount.
2.Pay more then 20% of my salary into the pension and not get tax relief on the bit in excess of the 20%.

Has anyone any suggestions?

My understanding is that I can only get tax relief of 42% on no more then the 20% I already pay in. Is this true?

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Yes

Ask my employer to increase his contribution by say 10k per annum and reduce my annual salary by this amount.

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This will also reduce your employers tax bill by 10.75% (Employers Contribution). If your employer does decide on this route ask him to include this as well

Pay more then 20% of my salary into the pension and not get tax relief on the bit in excess of the 20%.

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You can of course do this. Also remember that you can get tax relief @ 25% in the tax year that you are 40
The amount that you can get tax relief are as follows

40 to 49 .. 25%
50 to 55...30%
55 to 60...35%
over 60 ...40%

I've posted on another thread about this too, and maybe I'm fundamentally misunderstanding how this works, so be kind to me.

My company has a PRSA scheme. The employee puts in 5% salary, the company puts in 10% (which is an additional payment not taken from my salary). I then put in 5% more as an AVC (but to the same scheme), so that the total is 20%.

We have been told that that is all that can be put in tax-free.

Several threads, including this one, seem to be suggesting that the company contribution is independent of the employees potential 20% (up to age 40).

I understand Defined benefits are different to defined contributions/PRSAs, but even with the DC in another thread this argument is being made.

?? Am I wrong? Is my company wrong?

Some time later... OK... I spoke to a guy who knows more than me. I am wrong. My confusion arises from the fact that a PRSA is not really a defined contribution. This isn't clearly reflected in the sticky threads.
Ix.

If the scheme is a PRSA the company is right.

As mentioned in a previous post you can increase your contributions as you get older.

Is it possible that you could ask your employer to set up a Defined Contributions pension with both of your contributing the same percentages

Then afaia you could contribute an additional 15% by way of AVC to bring your contributions up to 20%

Costs of the scheme may be higher and may eat into your contributions and the employers contributions. I'm sure there are some low cost defined contributions schemes out there.

Main Costs to be aware of are

Bid Offer spread
% Contributions
Annual Charge

You need to work out the figures before committing