14 • industrynewS
PROUD SPONSORS
OF THIS PAGE
Auto-enrolment: Do you know
enough and how to prepare?
»»Bivek Sharma, Head of Small
Business Accounting at KPMG talks to
Locksmith Journal about how Autoenrolment is sweeping the nation and how
small businesses need to take heed!
By summer 2017, every employer
will need to have arranged and be
contributing towards a workplace
pension scheme – and to register
their arrangements with the Pensions
Regulator.
With one in seven retirees leaving work
without any form of personal pension,
the initiative – in principle – undoubtedly
shows proactivity on behalf of the
government. But with such a monumental
change to our pensions system now
fast approaching, the big question is:
has enough been done to prepare small
businesses for the big switch?
Bivek Sharma takes a look at the ins and
outs of the new system and advises on
how to best prepare your business for the
change.
Unprepared for autoenrolment
The deadline for businesses with 30
to 39 members to comply with AE (on
October 1, 2015) has already passed,
while for businesses with fewer than 30
members of staff, staging is staggered over
years, from June 2015, depending on the
last two characters in their PAYE reference
number.
‘sweeping the nation’
Do I have to register for AE?
It might seem tempting, especially for
microbusinesses with only a handful of
employees, to simply ignore the autoenrolment deadlines - but do this at your
peril. Non-compliance by an employer
with a PAYE scheme of between five and
49 people could risk fines of up to £500
a day. So far, the Pensions Regulator has
confirmed that they have fined around 600
employers for non-compliance.
Yes, that means you too!
The government requires even the
smallest of businesses to eventually
sign up. So if you hire a nanny or a small
team of part-time staff, you will need to
enrol.
You’ll need to offer AE to any workers
over the age of 22, under the state
pension age, and who earn more than
£9,440-a-year (a threshold which may
rise between now and when small
businesses reach their start date). These
workers must be enrolled if they are not
already part of a qualifying workplace
pension scheme.
How can I get everything
sorted in time?
Businesses have an ongoing
responsibility to stay compliant, adding
and removing joiners and leavers, as well
as assessing employees as their rates of
pay change and dealing with opt-outs
which poses a significant challenge in
itself.
‘it would be sen