Open the pages of any business magazine and there is likely to be an article on the millennial workforce – what they need from their employer, the benefits of millennials in business. But what about the benefits of an ageing workforce? There are now more than 1.2 million workers aged over 65, and almost one in seven is part of this age group. With state pension age continuing to rise, the lifecycle of employees is changing. Employees in...
Parliament’s pension fund trustees are to reconsider the rules of their investments to take account of the risk of climate change, in a first for MPs’ finances. While stopping short of a promise to fully divest from fossil fuels, the pledge by the trustees marks an important first step towards assessing and reducing the effect of the pension fund’s investments – which are ultimately paid for by the taxpayer – on climate change. The move is a victory for...
To some this will seem just another of those irritating little deductions that come through on salary slips, but in reality the amount you contribute will have a huge impact on your future From Saturday, the start of the new financial year, the 10 million or so Britons who are included under the pensions auto-enrolment legislation will have their workplace pension contributions go up from 5 per cent of their salary to 8 per cent. Employees have to contribute...
With the UK’s Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) working to pass legislation to roll out collective defined contribution (CDC) pension schemes, several firms are considering them for their employees. Around one in eight (13%) corporate pension scheme decision-makers believe that their company is either likely or very likely to adopt CDC schemes in the coming six years, according to a recent survey of by global corporate advisory firm Willis Towers Watson. That is, of course, provided the DWP’s...
Amber Rudd unveiled proposals today (4 April) to support industry to deliver free, user-friendly services showing people their pensions information online. Savers will be in the driving seat with all the facts and figures about their pensions and potential retirement income at their fingertips in one place for the first time – on smartphones, tablets and computers. Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd said: With record numbers saving for retirement as a result of our revolutionary reforms, it’s...
An accountant who fraudulently took over £290,000 from a pension scheme has been jailed for more than three years. Roger Bessent was trustee and administrator for the Focusplay Retirement Benefit Scheme – the pension scheme for the accountancy business he was a director of. Savers’ money was transferred into new business ventures that he, his family and a client attempted to run. Bessent also used the money to buy himself and his wife a house to rent out as...
The United Kingdom has recently completed a nationwide phased rollout of a requirement that employers automatically enroll employees into a retirement plan, with the ability to opt out, and researchers from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College say the results provide lessons for the United States. Following the UK’s initiative, participation rates have jumped to around 90% at medium and large employers (those with 58 or more workers), 74% at employers with 50 to 57 employees, 67%...
Changes to income tax take effect in two weeks – and with some smart use of pension pots you can save thousands of pounds in tax. The trick is to delay usual payments – using the flexibilities afforded by the pension freedom reforms – until 6 April. Both the personal allowance (the amount you can earn before paying any tax) and the level that higher-rate (40pc) tax kicks in are increasing for the 2019-20 tax year. That means earnings...
The Government has approved a new type of 'collective' pension scheme, where workers share investment risks in the hope of gaining more certainty over payouts in retirement. Pensions won't be guaranteed - retirees could see their income rise or fall from year to year - which makes them insecure compared with traditional final salary pensions. But schemes will be designed to give stronger protections than modern defined contribution pensions, where individual workers bear all investment risks when building pensions...
Aproposal by the U.K. government to increase penalties and impose up to seven years in jail for bosses who recklessly risk pensions might prompt more employers to offer defined-contribution retirement plans instead of defined-benefits plans. "Overall, the proposal seems likely to make defined-benefits plans even more disfavored," said David Powell, an attorney with Groom Law Group in Washington, D.C. The proposed criminal offenses may make it more difficult for pension schemes to recruit trustees, he noted. If a plan...
