Archive for the ‘HR’ Category
Pensions in 2012–A Summary
Well 2012 has got off to a great start here at 44 Financial. We’re working with a number of individual clients on their retirement options as well as three different new corporate tenders. What a fantastic start to the Olympic year!
Conscious as ever that there is so much going on in the pensions world we always try to look out for great articles and documents that will help our clients and blog subscribers to keep up to date. Sometimes its just enough to know what’s going on at a general level so you can decide how much you need to delve into the detail.
To that end we are grateful to those legal types at SNR Denton for their Pensions 2012 article. You can click through to the article here.
As a list to know what you should be keeping an eye on it’s great. There’s brief sections on Auto-enrolment, the abolition of contracting out, gender pricing of annuities.
We hope that you find this useful. As ever if you would like to look at the implications of any of this for your own arrangements please contact us. You can click here to complete our enquiry form.
We’d love to hear from you.
Steve Clark
TUPE & Administrations
Just before we all went off for our break there were two important Employment Tribunal cases involving companies in administration.
TUPE is a minefield as it is when there is a company transaction involved. It’s easy for an employer to come a cropper. Throw into this heady mix one side that is, or has been, in administration and it’s ever more complicated.
We are, therefore, grateful to Dechert LLP for their employment law update that sets out a good summary of the cases and where we stand now in this area. You can click through to the summary here.
As always with these cases the cost of a good legal adviser is a sound investment.
Steve Clark
Cost cutting–alternatives to redundancies
We’re constantly working with clients and prospective clients looking to make sure that the money they spend on benefits is effective.
In the current economic climate we look to save money for the employer. In a previous blog post “Is your advisor saving you this much?” we looked at the money we had saved a client who had recently appointed us. You can read the post by clicking here and find out how we saved them £95 per day!
When things like the benefit spend have been tackled some employers are still looking to save costs and then go on to consider redundancies. We received an update today from McDermott Will & Emery – an international legal firm. There’s a really good article in there that cover alternatives to redundancies. It’s well worth a read if you are looking at this type of exercise. You can click here to read the article.
If you are looking to save money on your benefits programme please email us at talk2us@44financial.co.uk.
Steve Clark
Weight for it! More on employment status
There has been a recent appeal in the Upper Tribunal from Weight Watchers (UK) Limited regarding the employment status of their Weight Watchers leaders that run their classes.
Weight Watchers said for tax purposes they were self employed and not an employee. The Tribunal disagreed and found they were employees. The Upper Tribunal looked at the degree of control Weight Watchers had over the leaders. The crux was that the Tribunal looked at the reality of the situation not just the documentation that Weight Watchers had in place.
What does this mean?
People who Weight Watchers thought were self employed are actually their employees. This means that Weight Watchers now face a huge tax bill. This is a clear warning that the Tribunal will ignore any documentation if this doesn’t accurately reflect the true position.
From a benefits perspective it also means that as employees Weight Watchers may face claims for backdated benefits such as pension that other employees are entitled to.
What should employers do?
You should make sure you regularly review your documentation to ensure that this reflects what’s happening in practice. You may also want to ensure they you provisions in place so you can recover tax and national insurance contributions from your employees.
As always if you have individuals working for you that you have deemed self-employed you may need t get some advice from your usual employment and legal advisers.
Steve Clark
Govt U-Turn on new pension rules?
There has been some murmuring recently about whether the government will change it’s mind and cut small business some slack in relation to the new pension rules coming next year.
Very recently the Pensions Minister Steve Webb rebutted this idea when he spoke in the Commons. However, on Friday an article appeared on the Daily Telegraph web site that seems to say the opposite. You can click through to the article here.
I’m not sure that this is as definitive as it sounds and we’ll probably have to wait and see if George Osborne says anything tomorrow.
It doesn’t really make sense only to exempt smaller employers as that will create a very uneven playing field if larger employers still have to comply. After all why take a job with a big employer where you have to pay 4% of your pay into a pension when you can work for a smaller employer and avoid it.
It’s all a bit of a mish-mash. Let’s hope we get some clarity soon as there are some employers who are still sticking their heads in the sand and pinning their hopes on some form of delay.
Watch this space!
Steve Clark