{"id":372,"date":"2015-08-12T08:11:11","date_gmt":"2015-08-12T08:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.boxpodcommercialproperty.co.uk\/blog\/?p=372"},"modified":"2015-11-12T14:50:15","modified_gmt":"2015-11-12T14:50:15","slug":"ae","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.boxpodcommercialproperty.co.uk\/blog\/ae\/","title":{"rendered":"Pensions Auto-Enrolment – what do I need to do?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pensions and savings are big news at the moment, so just what do employers and\u00a0owner-businesses have to do? Here’s a simple, no-nonsense guide to Auto-Enrolment<\/strong><\/p>\n

What is Auto-Enrolment?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Auto-enrolment is a government initiative to ensure more people save for their retirement.\u00a0 Employers are now legally required to automatically enrol certain employees into a workplace pension scheme with contributions being made by both the employee and the employer.<\/p>\n

Who does it apply to?<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you have at least one employee paid via a PAYE scheme you need to ensure you comply with the regulations.<\/p>\n

What do business owners need to do?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Employers need to assess their workforce for eligibility, choose and set up a pension scheme (if needed) and make necessary amendments to existing payroll processes.<\/p>\n

There is some relaxation of the rules for small, family-owned limited companies. Many pay the directors a small salary and use dividends to top up their income. If no employment contract is in place it is possible for the company to claim that they should not be treated as an employer.\u00a0See full details at www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk<\/a><\/p>\n

Timescales? When do they come into force?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Eligible employees need to be enrolled into the workplace pension scheme from a given \u2018staging date\u2019 provided by the Pensions Regulator, with all existing employers expected to have \u2018staged\u2019 by April 2017. \u00a0Find out when your staging date is at\u00a0www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk\/employers\/staging-date<\/a><\/p>\n

Nick Bairstow, partner at accountants Moore Stephens, says: \u201cIdeally businesses need to start preparing for auto-enrolment at least a year before their staging date.\u00a0 With tens of thousands of businesses all reaching their staging dates over the next two years, pension suppliers will be busier than ever before.\u00a0 Auto-enrolment is a complex process, so the longer you can give yourself to plan, the better.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you don’t do anything, what happens?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Failure or refusal to enrol employees into a qualifying scheme could mean an initial fixed penalty charge of \u00a3400 with continuing failure resulting in further daily fines.<\/p>\n

The table below shows which employees need to be enrolled<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Employee monthly gross earnings<\/td>\nEmployee age<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
16-21<\/td>\n22 to state pension age<\/td>\nState pension age to 74<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a3486 per month and below<\/td>\nEmployee has a right to join a workplace pension scheme but it is not compulsory for the employer to contribute<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Over \u00a3486 up to \u00a3833 per month<\/td>\nEmployee has a right to opt in to the auto-enrolment pension scheme and the employer must contribute<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Over \u00a3833 per month<\/td>\nHas a right to opt in to auto-enrolment as above<\/td>\nAutomatically enrol<\/td>\nHas a right to opt in to auto-enrolment as above<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n

For further financial advice go to\u00a0www.moorestephens.co.uk\/eastmidlands<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pensions and savings are big news at the moment, so just what do employers and\u00a0owner-businesses have to do? Here’s a simple, no-nonsense guide to Auto-Enrolment What is Auto-Enrolment? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boxpodcommercialproperty.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boxpodcommercialproperty.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boxpodcommercialproperty.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boxpodcommercialproperty.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boxpodcommercialproperty.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.boxpodcommercialproperty.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":406,"href":"https:\/\/www.boxpodcommercialproperty.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372\/revisions\/406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boxpodcommercialproperty.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boxpodcommercialproperty.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boxpodcommercialproperty.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}