Draw against reserved profit, not cash
A practice bank balance is a poor guide to what is distributable, because three obligations have not yet been demanded: income tax and Class 4 National Insurance on the profit share, superannuation contributions, and any annual allowance charge in prospect.
The annual allowance is £60,000 for 2026/27, with a threshold income of £200,000 before tapering is considered. The difficulty in general practice is the timing rather than the level: pension growth is driven by pensionable pay that is not finally certified until long after the year has closed, so a charge can arrive against a year everyone had treated as settled.
What the percentages should be
They depend on each partner's total income, so this tool asks rather than assumes. A reserve below 35% for tax is optimistic for most partners once Class 4 is in the figure. If the number this produces is a long way below current drawings, that is a conversation to have now rather than in January.
Why the annual allowance arrives so late
Because the certificate cannot be completed before the tax return, and the certificate is what fixes pensionable pay. NHSBSA is explicit that it cannot calculate growth in NHS benefits for medical practitioners until the Annual Certificate of Pensionable Profits is complete and certified earnings have been confirmed.
Follow the chain for 2026/27. The Estimate was due 28 February 2026. The Annual Certificate and the Type 2 form for the same year are not due until 28 February 2028. So the 2026/27 pension input amount cannot be finalised until roughly twenty-three months after the year end — well after the 31 January 2028 self-assessment deadline it feeds. NHSBSA's own instruction is that where a statement was issued on uncertified earnings, you write and request a revised one once the certificate is done.
That is the argument for reserving rather than reacting. A charge can land against a year everyone had treated as closed.
The Scheme Pays trap, which is widely misstated
Mandatory Scheme Pays needs two conditions: a charge over £2,000, and a pension input amount for that scheme above the annual allowance in s.228 — the standard £60,000. HMRC's Pensions Tax Manual says in terms that the tapered annual allowance and the money purchase annual allowance are ignored for those tests.
So a tapered GP with, say, a £20,000 allowance and a £45,000 input amount has a real charge and cannot use mandatory Scheme Pays. This is the single most commonly misstated point in GP pension advice. NHS voluntary Scheme Pays exists to fill exactly that gap and has been available for tapered cases since April 2017, with no £2,000 minimum.
Two practical differences matter. The election deadline is 31 July in the year following the tax year of the charge, on form SPE2 — and a transition member must complete both parts, because it is not possible to elect for one NHS scheme to pay the whole charge. And under voluntary Scheme Pays you remain personally responsible for the charge and any interest if HMRC is paid after 31 January, where under mandatory Scheme Pays the scheme takes that on. NHSBSA also advises not to delay an election while waiting for a statement — estimate, and elect.
Transition profit is still moving through the numbers
If the practice has a year end other than 31 March or 5 April, 2023/24 transition profit is spread over five years — and DHSC and the Treasury have confirmed that pensionable pay on the Annual Certificate follows the tax return, so the same slice is spread for pension purposes too, across 2023/24 to 2027/28. The estimate form requires practices to build that slice into estimated pensionable income. It inflates both the tax reserve and the pension input amount in years that otherwise look ordinary.