HMRC and pension schemes?
I have recently joined a pension scheme arranged by my employer. I live in Scotland and my mum says I need to tell HM Revenue and Customs about this. However, I've looked at the HMRC website and it says HMRC might ask me to fill in a tax return at the end of the tax year, suggesting that they would already know I'm paying into a pension. If they already know, why would I have to contact HMRC myself? I don't see anything on the website that says I need to contact them.
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The details of you pension contributions will be on your wage slip
so you don't need to tell HMRC, your company do that
There is no need to tell HMRC anything. If it is an approved occupational pension scheme, which they usually are, they know about it already as they will have approved it. Does your payslip now show you are paying National Insurance on Table D instead of Table A, resulting in lower NI? If so, it most certainly is an approved scheme and you're getting the NI discount for being in one. If your employer messes anything up to do with this, it's their problem, not yours. And that's true even if it isn't an approved scheme.
The only time you ever need to tell HMRC anything is if you become self-employed, or get a source of income they won't know about any other way. Everything else, they already know about, and if from that they decide they want you to complete a tax return, they'll send you one.
Petrusclavus mentions higher rate tax - even then it is not necessary to tell HMRC, as pension contributions are deducted from pay before calculating tax, which automatically takes account of higher rate.
You probably don't but you could call the HMRC helpline and ask. As this time of year it shouldn't be too hard to get through.
Mum is wrong, the company operates the scheme and does the contribution deduction and tax credit for you. Ignore unless you pay higher rate tax/