Contributing to Personal Pension if not working

I have a personal pension(R.A.C) that I am contributing to. I will be going back to college. Can I continue to contribute to the personal pension(R.A.C.) if I give up work while I’m in college?

Why would you?

If you are not paying tax at 40% then you are not getting tax relief.

Wait until you are again getting tax relief at 40% to maximise the value of your contributions.

Brendan

You can continue to contribute. You can claim tax relief for the payments in future tax years. You will be limited to your age related maximum tax relief in those future years , so when you include the backdated contributions you will be restricted in the amount you can contribute in those future years.
If you have a surplus of money at present that you want to invest, this can be a good idea as you will be gaining tax free gains on a larger amount in your pension for a longer time scale

Hi S class

Let's say he has 20% income for some of those years but not 40%.

Would it be automatically set against the 20%?

If so, then he should hold onto his money until he gets the full 40% relief.

Brendan

They could choose to hold off on contributing, or claiming relief on backdated contributions in the future until they have earnings at 40%.
I don't think that they would be forced to claim tax relief in any particular year.

Tax free growth may make it worth it.

More than likely when you go back to work you will join a pension scheme/ AE scheme which means you won’t get tax relief on contributions to the RAC anyway.

Ya. I want to continue my pension contributions because of the tax free growth. Does anybody know for certain what will happen with RACs when Auto Enrolment comes in? Everything I’ve read says Auto Enrolment will be for those with no occupational pension but it doesn’t mention what will happen to those with a RAC but no occupational pension.