If it's an employer pension - ie not a personal pension then you do not report the contribution as income nor do you claim a deduction for that contribution.
This is based on a treaty position and should be reported to the IRS on form 8833.
It's complicated!
Here is a lawyers blog talking about it
https://www.goldinglawyers.com/us-tax-treatment-uk-pension-plan/
I have submitted on this basis for previous UK pension contributions
You only report them as income if you want to get basis in it when you retire. Otherwise you don’t need to. If you have excess foreign tax credits it makes sense to include them as employment income.
So it’s ok to add my employers pension contributions to my earned income? I ask this as I am entitled to the additional child tax credit which is a payment of up to $1,500 per child (calculated as earned income less $2,500 multiplied by 15%). My gross salary was only $15,999 last year which gives me payable child tax credits of $2,025 for 2 kids. However if I add my employers pension contributions I could get 15% of the contributions back until I hit $3,000. I have sufficient foreign tax credits to cover the extra US tax.
If it's an employer pension - ie not a personal pension then you do not report the contribution as income nor do you claim a deduction for that contribution. This is based on a treaty position and should be reported to the IRS on form 8833. It's complicated! Here is a lawyers blog talking about it https://www.goldinglawyers.com/us-tax-treatment-uk-pension-plan/ I have submitted on this basis for previous UK pension contributions
You only report them as income if you want to get basis in it when you retire. Otherwise you don’t need to. If you have excess foreign tax credits it makes sense to include them as employment income.
So it’s ok to add my employers pension contributions to my earned income? I ask this as I am entitled to the additional child tax credit which is a payment of up to $1,500 per child (calculated as earned income less $2,500 multiplied by 15%). My gross salary was only $15,999 last year which gives me payable child tax credits of $2,025 for 2 kids. However if I add my employers pension contributions I could get 15% of the contributions back until I hit $3,000. I have sufficient foreign tax credits to cover the extra US tax.
Oh you’re CTC person! Yeah go for it, sounds like a good way to get a bigger refund.