I have a query on pension payments and Khums that I hope you can help with (based on taqlid of Ayatollah Seestani).

My employer takes pension contributions from my salary (before tax), however I can opt out of the pension scheme if I wish.

Do I need to make khums payments for the amounts taken by my employer? If so, should this be the amount before tax or should I work out what the cash equivalent I would have received after tax is (as if I had opted out of the scheme) and pay Khums on that?

Also, what are the khums implications when receiving a cash lump sum / pension on retirement?

As for the question on khums on pension: if the employer is contributing to the employee's pension fund, then khums would not be applicable on the employer's portion when it is contributed to the fund on the monthly or yearly basis. Yes, after retirement, when the employee gets the money, then he should consider that to be his income of that year (the year he accessed his pension funds) and then calculate it accordingly. In this case, his expenses of that year (including whatever tax that he had to pay on it) will be exempted from khums calculation. Whatever is left after the expenses and tax, that amount should be considered for calculating the khums.

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