Pension scheme trustees may continue to use the pensions earnings cap, which officially ceased to exist from 6 April 2006, for the purpose of restricting pension payments from a registered pension scheme for a transitional period. The transitional period ends on the earlier of
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Posted February 4th, 2010 | No Comments »
Pension reforms introduced in 2003 introduced a single minimum pension age of 50 for all registered occupational and personal pension schemes. This minimum age increases to 55 from 6 April 2010. From that date, pension scheme members will normally only be able to draw their pension when they are 55 or older.
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Posted January 20th, 2010 | No Comments »
Summary
A series of statutory Order and Regulations have been published that describe most of the final structure of the NEST scheme that will be introduced in 2012. In particular, they provide information about the operation of the new Corporation that will act as Trustee to the scheme, and the four-year implementation timetable so that every employer can now find out when the scheme will affect them.
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Posted January 20th, 2010 | No Comments »
On 7 January, the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority (PADA) announced that the permanent and statutory name of the new national workplace pension scheme, due to be introduced from October 2012 onwards, will be “National Employment Savings Trust”, NEST for short. The logo shows the word “nest” on top of an egg, suggesting the idea of the scheme as providing a “nest egg”.
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Posted January 15th, 2010 | No Comments »
On 12 November, the Department or Work and Pensions published the findings of research exploring small employers’ likely responses to the workplace pension reforms set to come into force in October 2012.
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Posted November 18th, 2009 | No Comments »
Section 394 of the Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003 imposes a tax charge on the provision of relevant benefits from an employer-financed retirement benefits scheme (EFRBS). For example, if a retired employee continues to be provided with private medical insurance, it is fully taxable under these rules.
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Posted November 4th, 2009 | No Comments »
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has published the third of the three consultation documents that were promised on the rules and procedures that will apply to the provision by employers of Pension Personal Accounts. Employers will be required, during a transitional period starting in 2012, to enrol employees in either an existing occupational or personal pension scheme or in a new workplace pension personal account scheme. Whichever scheme is used by an employer to meet the statutory requirements, it must provide for automatic enrolment of jobholders and the employer must make contributions into the scheme.
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Posted October 8th, 2009 | 1 Comment »
The latest website tohave its guidance moved to the central Directgov and Business Link websites is DWP’s Pension Service website.
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Posted September 29th, 2009 | No Comments »
The Personal Account Delivery Authority (PADA) is a temporary body established by legislation to introduce the personal accounts scheme, planned for 2012. The new scheme is intended to complement existing workplace pension provision and will be a trust-based occupational pension scheme.
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Posted August 26th, 2009 | No Comments »
From April 2011, the tax relief on pension contributions will be restricted to the basic rate where an individual’s annual income is £150,000 or more. To prevent large sums being paid into pension funds in advance of April 2011 in order to obtain tax relief at 40%, transitional provisions apply from 22 April 2009 in the form of a “special annual allowance charge”. The way in which this special charge will be applied in the 2009/10 and 2010/11 tax years (assuming the tax relief change is actually introduced in April 2011) is set out in Schedule 35 of the Finance Act 2009. The measures apply to registered pension schemes.
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Posted August 5th, 2009 | No Comments »
