Automatic Enrolment

Helping your business comply

Automatic Enrolment, the legislation that requires employers to have a qualifying pension scheme, has now been live for a number of years. Over the past two years, the vast majority of small and medium sized companies have been affected, and there has been a significant increase in fines as the regulator becomes more pro-active.

MHA Carpenter Box Wealth Management has built up significant experience dealing with a wide variety of employers who needed assistance in meeting their legal requirements. In carrying out this work many employers underestimate the time involved with the implementation of a qualifying pension scheme and the ongoing administration requirements the legislation calls for.

Some of the ongoing issues employers must deal with include:

• Existing pension schemes may not be eligible for Automatic Enrolment
• There are three acceptable definitions of ‘Qualifying Earnings’ – which definition makes the most sense for your business?
• As an employer, compliance with the rules is your responsibility. This includes an ongoing duty to make sure your pension scheme continues to meet the rules and that the default investment fund chosen is still fit for purpose.
• Automatic Enrolment doesn’t finish once you’ve reached your staging date – you need to assess and modify your contributions for every pay period. Furthermore, automatic re-enrolment will occur every three years: you must re-enrol eligible staff into an automatic enrolment pension scheme if they’re not already active members of one every three years after your staging date.

MHA Carpenter Box Wealth Management is able to provide a complete service which will help ensure your company is compliant on an ongoing basis.

How we can help:

• An initial evaluation of your workforce identifying eligible employees
• Designing a suitable pension solution that meets legislative requirements
• Communicating with changes with your staff
• Implementing changes
• Ongoing monitoring of the scheme to ensure compliance is maintained

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Related services:

• Corporate financial planning

• Business tax

• Succession planning

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Financial advice is provided in association with MHA Carpenter Box Wealth Management, an independent advisory firm regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. The Financial Conduct Authority does not regulate Tax Advice, Estate Planning, some elements of Automatic Enrolment or Cash Flow Modelling. Click here to read our provision of regulations.

The value of investments and the income derived from them can fall as well as rise. You may not get back what you invest.

The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) is an agency for arbitrating on unresolved complaints between regulated firms and their clients. Full details of FOS can be found at www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk