According to IFA Online, the DWP has confirmed when employers must pay pension contributions for workers on maternity leave after some confusion over the law. Apparently there is uncertainty among employers about which periods of maternity leave count as pensionable service. Follow this link to read the full story
SHORT SERVICE PENSION FUNDS TO DISAPPEAR
7 September 2011 Pensions minister Steve Webb has vowed short service refunds will not be part of the future pensions landscape, and warned employers not to factor them in when selecting a scheme. Professional Pensions reports that speaking at the annual LCP Pensions Conference, Webb said the Department for Work and Pensions was looking at whether these could be addressed when it tackled the wider issue of transfers. Webb described short service refund as a "troubling feature of the system" as they did not fit with the government's aim of getting the population to save more for retirement. He said the department would explore all the options on dealing with them including ensuring pension pots defaulted to a single provider when members changed employers, or insisting funds are transferred to new employers' schemes. Follow this link to read the full story 21 September 2011 Pensions minister Steve Webb has confirmed the Department for Work and Pensions will this autumn propose reforms to the system of transferring small pension pots. He said many people have a collection of different pots from their various employers. The minister said: "I want to help people put those pension pots together to give - to use a technical term - 'big fat pots'; we will be producing a document later in the year that will set out some of the options. Current rules mean there are difficulties in combining small pots, which presents further problems as annuity providers rarely sell products for less than £5,000. Read the full story from Professional Pensions 5 October 2011 As many of you will be aware the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) which was formed last July as an independent body to review legislation, recently announced that the next set of reviews will be on share schemes and pension taxation. The policy team is pleased to announce that Karen Thomson has been formerly invited to join the committee undertaking the review on pension taxation. Initially Karen is looking for some ideas/issues etc as to what really impacts pensioners. Please note at this stage the review is not just limited to State Pension Age receivers but all those that receive pensions. If you can spare 10 minutes to email Karen.thomson@cipp.org.uk with any issues you feel pensioners have in respect of the tax system, along with any suggestions for improvement. The closing date for responding is 7 October which week away we appreciate is only a week but your feedback is very valuable. TRANSFERRING RULES FOR SMALL PENSION POTS TO BE REVIEWED OTS PENSION TAXATION REVIEW
CIPP Policy News Journal
09/10/2012, Page 174 of 234
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