A new pension schemes newsletter has been published by HMRC. The latest edition of the newsletter includes details of the following topics:

1. Lifetime allowance. The lifetime allowance for pension savings is currently £1,030,000. It was announced as part of the Budget measures that the lifetime allowance will increase to £1,055,000 from April 2019.
2. Pension flexibility. The quarterly release of official statistics on flexible payments for the period 1 July to 30 September 2018 has been published. Over 18,000 tax repayment claim forms were received by HMRC and over £38m was repaid.
3. Registration statistics. For the period 6 April 2018 to 5 April 2019, HMRC received in total 923 applications to register new pension schemes. This is a 21% reduction compared to applications received in the previous tax year.
4. Manage and Register Pension Schemes service. The Manage and Register Pension Schemes service was launched on 4 June 2018. The new service is being rolled out in two phases and will ultimately hold all information relating to pension scheme registration
   and administration to one place. From 13 November 2018 HMRC will be adding new features to the service. The second phase will be rolled out in 2019.
5. Applying to register a pension scheme. The newsletter includes a reminder that there is no set time limit on how long HMRC can take to decide whether or not to register the pension scheme. This is because HMRC may need time to ask further questions or be
   provided with additional information. If HMRC has not decided within 6 months of receiving an application, then an appeal to a tribunal can be made as if HMRC had decided not to register the scheme.

Source: New feed