Pensions and Auto-enrolment

New pension legislation gives employers new duties in relation to their workforce.

As an employer, you have new duties in relation to everyone working for you:

• Who is aged between 16 and 74
• Who works in the UK
• For whom you deduct income tax and national insurance contributions from their wages

Your duties depend on the ages and earnings of your staff on your ‘staging date’, which could be some years from now.

Your ‘staging date’ is the date which the law switches on for your company. Staging dates are being staged in over a period of six years, which started with the largest employers in 2012.

Staging dates are based on the size of an employer’s PAYE scheme on 1 April 2012 – the more people in the PAYE scheme at that time, the earlier the staging date. If you use more than one PAYE scheme, your staging date is based on the total number of people in the largest one that you use.

Staging dates are determined based on the latest PAYE scheme information from HMRC as at 1 April 2012.

If you made any changes to your PAYE scheme before this date, they may not be reflected in the data from HMRC.

If you don’t comply, the Pension Regulator will be taking enforcement action. Enforcement action starts with statutory notices and is followed by penalty notices, which may result in court action.

If you would like to arrange for one of our Directors to discuss how we can assist you with pension and auto-enrolment, please click here to arrange for a ‘call me back’ at a convenient time for you.