You may or may not have seen the government led television advertisements that shows workers declaring “we’re all in”; this is all part of the Automatic Enrolment campaign which is now in full swing, informing employers and employees that the way workplace pensions operate are changing significantly.
Automatic Enrolment is a new system which requires employers to automatically enrol their qualifying workers into a pension scheme and contribute towards their savings. The employee sets aside a percentage of their salary every month and both their employer and the government contributes a percentage to help increase their retirement savings.
You may have been told that if you have no employees, or that as a Director (and the only ‘employee’) you don’t have to do anything and that auto-enrolment doesn’t apply to you, this is incorrect. Regardless of whether you have employees or not, all business owners must complete a declaration of compliance – this is to show the Pensions Regulator that you have complied with your employer duties.
Your declaration deadline is five calendar months after your staging date, failure to complete your declaration can result in an enforceable fine from the Pensions Regulator.
Key Points
- If employers do not have any employees to automatically enrol they still must complete their declaration of compliance e.g. Director only.
- Penalties are being enforced for employers who fail to submit their declaration of compliance on time.
- The declaration will be an accurate overview of your employees on the staging date.
- Each employee must be accounted for on the declaration.
- The deadline to submit the declaration is five months after your staging date.
- Employers should start completing their declaration as soon as possible to avoid fines.
To complete your declaration of compliance, visit the gov.uk website here: https://www.autoenrol.tpr.gov.uk/
