The Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals ……………………………………………………………Policy News Journal
Consultation on pension scams 15 December 2016
A consultation has been published to seek views on a package of measures to tackle three different areas of pensions scams, including a ban on cold calling in relation to pensions.
Pension scams can cost people their life savings, and leave people facing retirement with limited income, and little or no opportunity to build their pension savings back up. The government is committed to protecting people from pension scams; and pursuing those who perpetuate pension scams wherever possible.
This consultation sets out a package of measures aimed at tackling three different areas of pensions scams:
a cold calling ban will cut off a key source of pension scams whilst also sending a clear message to consumers that they should hang-up if they are cold called about their pension current legislation gives pension schemes limited scope to refuse a transfer to a scheme which looks like a scam, even if they have legitimate concerns as to the safety of a member’s savings. HM Treasury is consulting on clarifying the law so that firms can block pension transfers based on clear objective criteria single-member occupation pension schemes currently require no registration with The Pensions Regulator, and can be set up using a dormant company as the sponsoring employer. They are therefore an easy way for fraudsters to register a pension scheme with HMRC. HM Treasury is consulting on making it a requirement that only active companies can register a pension scheme.
The consultation will run until Monday 13 February 2017. Responses should be sent to PensionScamsConsultation@HMTreasury.gsi.gov.uk
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Pension schemes newsletter 83 15 December 2016
The latest Pension Schemes Newsletter has been published by HMRC which contains updates and guidance on pension schemes.
Serious ill-health lump sums - reporting through Real Time Information (RTI) - delay One of the items in Pension schemes newsletter 83 refers to the September newsletter (81) which explained that the tax treatment of serious ill-health lump sums changed following Royal Assent to Finance Bill 2016. HMRC is currently working on the RTI amendments which will include a separate field for serious ill-health lump sum payments to individuals over 75 but the RTI system won’t be updated straight away. HMRC said that this new field was due to be released in December however they won’t be able to publish details of this until early in 2017. They are aware that this may cause problems in designing and developing software so to help with this, whilst it is still mandatory that you report serious ill-health lump sum payments, it will not be mandatory to report these payments using the RTI data field until 6 April 2018. QROPS online Another noteworthy item reports that from April 2017 QROPS online will no longer be accessible. Changes to QROPS forms in recent years mean that the system no longer captures the correct information so HMRC are closing QROPS online.
For further details on these two updates and for other important news, read Pension schemes newsletter 83 .
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