Primary protection or enhanced protection applies to all the
benefit rights an individual may have under all
registered pension schemes. Such protection will
not be scheme specific. Only the individual can notify HMRC that
either primary or enhanced protection (or both) applies to them.
After an individual notifies HMRC of their right to primary
or enhanced protection (or both) HMRC will give the individual a
certificate with details of their protection. This is a
confidential matter between HMRC and the individual taxpayer. This
means that HMRC cannot give a scheme administrator a copy of an
individual’s certificate unless the individual concerned has
authorised HMRC to do so.
A scheme administrator can ask an individual to give them a
copy of their certificate or arrange for the individual to
authorise HMRC to give the
scheme administrator details of the certificate
using form APSS 203 (which is available from the HMRC website). The
scheme administrator will then be able to view the certificate
online. Alternatively if the scheme administrator would like to
receive details of the individual’s certificate in the post
form APSS209 must be completed in addition to form APSS203.
Certificates of protected rights can be amended or cancelled.
Scheme administrators will need to consider how up to date their
information is when they start to pay benefits to an
individual.
| Glossary ( RPSM20000000) |
