The state pension is clearly a worthwhile thing to have, particularly for the self-employed who will receive a pension through the new ‘flat rate’ pension. However, there have been numerous changes to the qualification criteria over recent years and now may be a good time to check your entitlement. One thing which is worth bearing […]
Pensions – Tax Reliefs
Types of pension schemes There are two broad types of pension schemes from which an individual may eventually be in receipt of a pension: Workplace pension schemes Personal Pension schemes. A Workplace pension scheme may either be a defined benefit scheme or a money purchase scheme. A defined benefit scheme pays a retirement income related […]
Pensions – Automatic Enrolment
What is automatic enrolment? Automatic enrolment places duties on employers to automatically enrol ‘workers’ into a work based pension scheme. The main duties are: assessing the types of workers in the business providing a qualifying automatic enrolment pension scheme for the relevant workers writing to most of their workers explaining what automatic enrolment into a […]
Auto enrolment – how this affects small businesses
Automatic enrolment legislation will affect all employers with at least one member of staff in the UK. An employer’s duties will “switch on” from their staging date. By now, many small businesses have received their letter from the pensions regulator with their staging date. If you don’t know yours yet, please contact us and we can […]
Pensions – Tax Treatment on Death
Alongside the changes from April 2015 to the access of pension funds, significant changes were made to the tax treatment of pension funds on death. This factsheet summarises the rules which may allow a pension fund to pass free of all taxes on the estate of the deceased and free of all taxes on the […]
Pension – update on forthcoming changes
The biggest change in years is around auto enrolment. Under this, companies will be required to have a company pension scheme available to all employees and for employers to make contributions. […]