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PRO INSTALLER NOVEMBER 2015
PRO BUSINESS
@proinstaller1
Auto-enrolment:
Do you know enough
and how to prepare?
Head of Small Business
Accounting at KPMG,
Bivek Sharma talks to
Pro Installer about Autoenrolment and its effects
on small businesses.
Auto-enrolment is sweeping the nation. By summer 2017, every employer will need to have arranged and be
contributing towards a workplace
pension scheme – and to register
their arrangements with the Pensions Regulator.
With one in seven retirees leaving work
without any form of personal pension , the
initiative – in principle – undoubtedly shows
proactivity on behalf of the government.
But with such a monumental change to our
pensions system now fast approaching, the
big question is: has enough been done to
prepare small businesses for the big switch?
Bivek Sharma takes a look at the ins and
outs of the new system and advises on how
you can best prepare your business for the
change.
Unprepared for auto-enrolment
Start your planning now. The deadline
for businesses with 30 to 39 members to
comply with AE (on 1 October 2015) has
already passed, while for businesses with
fewer than 30 members of staff, staging is
staggered over years, from June 2015, depending on the last two characters in their
PAYE reference number.
Do I have to register for AE?
It might seem tempting, especially for
microbusinesses with only a handful of
employees, to simply ignore the auto-enrolment deadlines - but do this at your peril.
Non-compliance by an employer with a
PAYE scheme of between five and 49 people
could risk fines of up to £500/day1! So far,
the Pensions Regulator has confirmed that
they have fined around 600 employers for
non-compliance.
‘Non-compliance by an employer with a PAYE scheme of between five and 49
people could risk fines of up to £500/day! So far, the Pensions Regulator has
confirmed that they have fined around 600 employers for non-compliance’
Yes, that means you too!
The government requires even the smallest
of businesses to eventually sign up. So if
you hire a nanny or a small team of parttime staff, you will need to enrol.
You’ll need to offer AE to any workers
over the age of 22, under the state pension
age, and earn more than £9,440-a-year (a
threshold which may rise between now
and when small businesses reach their start
date). These workers must be enrolled if
they are not already part of a qualifying
workplace pension scheme.
How can I get everything
sorted in time?
Businesses have an ongoing responsibility to stay compliant, adding and removing
joiners and leavers, as well as assessing
employees as their rates of pay c