According to recent press releases HMRC is to amend its salary sacrifice rules to allow staff who opt out of a pension scheme after automatic enrolment, to do so at any time and receive a full refund.
Professional Pensions reported:
“Under current salary sacrifice rules, cancelling a salary sacrifice arrangement (unless due to a lifetime event) outside of set review periods is not currently permitted. This means the employee may not be entitled to the refund of the salary sacrificed despite the cessation of pension scheme contributions. As a result employers faced a real danger that by allowing employees to cancel a salary sacrifice arrangement the validity of whole of the company's sacrifice arrangement could have been called into question from a tax and national insurance contribution perspective. However, HMRC has confirmed that its guidance on salary sacrifice will be changed. Employees auto-enrolled via salary sacrifice will not be held to the arrangement if they subsequently opt out of the pension scheme and will be entitled to a refund of the salary they sacrificed , subject to tax and National Insurance, returning them to their pre-sacrifice salary level and ensuring they are not left out of pocket.” The CIPP are grateful to Professional Pensions and also Thomsons Online Benefits for alerting us to this news; however the CIPP along with others had raised this issue with HMRC through the Expenses and Benefits forum. The CIPP are disappointed that at the time of releasing this important information the full guidance is not yet available on HMRC’s website considering this is a fundamental issue for many employers currently planning their auto enrolment procedures.
DWP AND TPR JOIN FORCES AND LAUNCH AN EMPLOYER COMMUNICATION WEBSITE
2 May 2012
The Pensions Regulator and the Department for Work and Pensions have launched a website which details all the communication employers will need to let their workforce know about Automatic Enrolment. The new site includes useful templates on all the information you will need to communicate to your employees through each process of automatic enrolment, which can be adapted to suit your business. There are sample articles, newsletters, a power point presentation and even examples of text that you can use in email or via SMS messages.
Visit the new TPR / DWP website for further details.
CIPP POLICY SURVEY RESPONSE: REVISED IMPLEMENTATION PROPOSALS FOR AUTOMATIC ENROLMENT
4 May 2012
Thank you to those members who took the time to respond to this survey. The CIPP have submitted a formal response.
This consultation was published to seek views on the changes to the automatic enrolment implementation timetable for employers with less than 250 workers in their PAYE scheme and to the arrangements for phasing of minimum contributions affecting all employers.
CIPP Policy News Journal
12/04/2013, Page 230 of 362
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