Workplace pensions compliance

[Karimbo]

Hi

I was the owner operator of my ltd company, paying myself under PAYE. I did not have workplace pensions set up til now.

I will be employing my partner into the business. For the small salary she will be getting paid for the part time assistance we cannot see how she'd benefit from workplace pensions. So she has decided to elect out of it and just receive the full pay in cash.

I'm just curious as to what is the cheapest way to become compliant with workplace pensions where she opts out.

I heard on the radio that a business owner does it for his business where all his employees opt out and he still pays £200 for the fee to do the paperwork.

Surely there must be a cheaper way of doing it.

 

[DontAsk]

It costs nothing. Do it all on line on the Pensions Regulators website. You should have already visited that site by now, have registered, and be aware of the steps you need to go through.

 

[Caspar]

As far as I am aware, you don't need to have an auto enrolment pension in place. But when you take on your first employee where you have to assess, you assess them based on their earnings,

If less than or equal to £5,876 the are an entitled worker and don't have to be enrolled but can ask to be enrolled when you send the letter out.

If earning over £5,876 but no more than £10,000 they are a non-eligible job holder and again don't have to be enrolled unless they specifically want to when you send a letter out.

If they are earning in excess of £10,000 they are an eligible job holder and have to be auto enrolled, even if they opt out later.

If your new employee is going to fall into one of the first 2 categories, unless they ask to enrol, you don't need to do anything further, other than keep the letter on file you sent to show that you have followed assessment rules and the procedure you followed.

If they fall into the third category, then you do need to auto-enrol and I believe you are given time to set this up (it could be 6 weeks or so, you would have to check), so it isn't all a rush for you. Set up can be done quickly, a phone call to the provider you choose, and completion of the documentation required. Once opted out, you don't have to reassess this employee for 3 years, and of course if you take on any further employees, the same process would apply.