****ing automatic enrolment

[Dixy]

Is anyone else being driven to suicide by this. As a small employer the only cost neutral option is NEST who clearly dont give a stuff how sodding complicated and incomprehensible all their stuff is. When I speak to HMRC they just say it is down to the pension provider.
It would seem that the tax is calculated post pension deduction but the NIC is pre pension deduction, but is that plus or minus the employers contribution.
Anyone got a rope and a suitable tree.

[red_slr]

My wife did ours we only have half a dozen people or so on average. She said once its up and running its actually pretty easy they just make it more complicated than it needs to be during the set up process. We are NEST by the way.

It will be the next PPI mark my words!!!

[monoloco]

yup -sore point with me too! Absolute bureaucratic nightmare -we had a perfectly decent staff pension scheme using individual personal pensions which I paid into on a 'matched salary sacrifice' basis and everyone ( ie all five staff) were very happy with it. Then along comes AE and for some reason it wasn't compliant. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I ended up with a small employer scheme from Royal London -once you get the hang of it its OK and fairly simple to operate. Their charges aren't too bad and it looks a lot more efficient/better return than NEST.

[red_slr]

What really p*ssed me off is I gave everyone a pay rise in the new year (about £1000 a year) and they all quickly forgot about that and still enrolled in the WPP. Next year when they come with cap in hand they will be told to do one!

[bga]

We staged in November and it was a PITA. While the cost has been relatively minor, it has been an effort to open the scheme and then let people opt out (all but one did). This was all for the sake of our existing commercial providers need employee signature to open a scheme. Madness.

[JulianPH]

Try www.aeassistant.com

They will handle everything for you regarding the set up and can then run it for you on an ongoing basis if you wish.

They charge £250 to set everything up and a few hundred quid a year (sorry, I can't remember exactly) to run it all for you.

So not free, but not a lot of money. You then don't have to touch it and they guarantee compliance.



Edited for typo!

[MWM3]

Just get your accountant to set it up for you, nice and simple that way. Didnt cost too much to get them to do it and well worth not having to faff around yourself.

[stumpage]

We found it easy. The problem we have is trying to get the staff to understand the company hasn't imposed this. All they see their monthly take home reduce and say we're taking money from them. It's going to be great for the next 3 years as the annual payrise they get will be swallowed up by the increased pension contributions they must pay.

[Digga]

stumpage said:

We found it easy. The problem we have is trying to get the staff to understand the company hasn't imposed this. All they see their monthly take home reduce and say we're taking money from them. It's going to be great for the next 3 years as the annual payrise they get will be swallowed up by the increased pension contributions they must pay.

Expect to hear more of this over the coming years as the minimum contributions change.

Currently, the minimum is 2% (1% each from employer and employee), but the rates hike to:
2018: 5% - 2% from employer and 3% from employee
2019: 8% - 3% from employer and 5% from employee

For firms struggling to make enough to offer pay rises, this will be tough enough, but for those on low wages with little to no pay growth, the effect on disposable income will be significant.

[The Ferret]

As usual, the powers that be have made this a complete f*cking nightmare and over-complicated to the point that the only real winners are the advisers.

We staged in February, and it was fairly straightforward.

That said, it was only straightforward because:

a) I'm a qualified accountant.
b) I have payroll software that manages 90% of the work.
c) I have the time to spend getting it right.

It could have been such a simple bit of legislation, but instead they decided to screw around with it, adding things like "qualifying earnings" "automatic re-enrollment" "postponement" "eligible employees" "entitled employees" "non eligible employees" etc......

And yes it will be the next PPI, in fact it could make PPI look like a drop in the ocean. As employees under AE begin to hit retirement just watch the next breed of claims lawyers jump on the bandwagon offering their services, causing the employers yet more grief over something they never asked for yet complied with nonetheless.

F***ing joke, rant over.