Section 16: decisions under the Pension Schemes Act 1993
190.Section 16(1) transfers to the Inland Revenue the function of making decisions on contracting-out matters, which arise mainly under Part III of PSA. The amendments to the PSA made under subsection (2) retain the decision-making and appeal procedures to be introduced by the SSA, including an appeal route on pensions issues to the unified appeals tribunal. This is because the work on contracted-out pensions is separate from other current CA work, and is specialised and often highly technical and quite distinct from tax and contributions work. The Act provides that the few formal appeals expected should stay with the unified appeal tribunal, with its scope to include pensions experts as tribunal members, rather than transfer to the tax appeal Commissioners.
