Archive for the ‘Pensions’ Category
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
Living Together? Your rights on pensions, inheritance & tax
Despite the increasing trend for people to live together many couples are unaware that if their partner dies they might not get everything they thought they would.
This is especially true in relation to what you get from a pension scheme or your partner’s estate.
It’s quite a minefield for most people to navigate . Don’t worry we’ve found for you a great guide for you to read. This looks at your rights if you’re in this position and gives you some great Top Tips to have a look at. You can click through to the guide here.
It’s a sad fact that many couples take longer to organise a two week holiday than they do to sort out what happens if one of them gets sick or dies.
To help further 44 Financial Ltd offers a comprehensive review service that will help you avoid these pitfalls. We’ll look at all your finances and wishes for the future and give you advice and pointers on things like inheritance, pension benefits. and protection for you and your partner if you are sick or die. We’ll also work with your solicitor if you have one to make sure that everything is done properly.
To arrange a free initial consultation email us here.
And last but not least a big thank you to those nice legal people at DMH Stallard for sending us the guide.
Steve Clark
Is your advisor saving you this much?
One of our main roles as your advisor is making sure that you get excellent value for the money that you spend on benefits. When it comes to our fees and costs nothing’s different. It can be a bit more subjective when we look at the value that we bring. Some of that will depend on the feedback that comes from employees who are members of the arrangements.
A good example is a recent reply to one of our LinkedIn updates that we posted. It was highlighting some research that Standard Life had done. The post basically stated that 72% of over 55s don’t think they can live on £140 a week State Pension. I got a reply from Ian Gray who was a client I advised on his retirement. Ian wrote in reply:
"Thanks to you Steve I do not have to. Many thanks for all your past advice. – Ian Gray"
We have loads more examples from clients of this kind of feedback that demonstrates that we are adding value for clients (and as importantly their employees) in everything we do.
But what about value you can measure?
Great feedback is fantastic and it shows us that we are doing something right. However, it’s hard to quantify in pounds and pence the impact that we have had.
When it comes to looking at the arrangements we look after for clients we can get this kind of quantative feedback. Forgive us for a little bit of self-publicity in looking at a recent case study involving one of our new clients that we have picked up from a national advisory firm. It demonstrates the value of what we do and the benefit of being with a pro-active advisor.
Since taking over we have done a full benefit audit. We’ve checked that everything has been set up correctly and that all of the benefits have been reviewed regularly.
So far (and there is still work to do) we’ve saved the company £25,629! Yes £25,629. This isn’t a large employer – they’ve got just over 30 employees. Here’s how we did it:
|
Description |
Amount Saved |
|
Review of Group Travel Insurance Policy |
£200 |
|
Waiver of Premium Refund Claim – Employer |
£9,787 |
|
Waiver of Premium Refund Claim – Employee |
£4,638 |
|
Review of Medical Care Scheme |
£7,252 |
|
Review of Income Protection Scheme |
£3,752 |
|
Total |
£25,629 |
That works out at a saving of over £95 for each day that we’ve been working for them! A tremendous result for the company in such difficult economic times. We’d like to think we could continue at that rate but sadly it’s not going to happen.
It’s not just about saving money. During our audit we’ve unearthed a Waiver of Premium pension
claim that had never been submitted, a temporary absence clause on the Group Life Scheme that leaves the employer badly exposed and group risk arrangements that we needed to bring into line with the Default Retirement Age "carve out".
All in all, a good few months work. We’ve not only identified and released savings but also identified and mitigated a number of very real business risks.
If your advisor isn’t doing all that for you – isn’t it time you changed. Our example shows that the biggest in our industry aren’t always the best.
To arrange an initial meeting at our expense please contact us here. It may well be the best investment you ever make!
Steve Clark
All images courtesy of Flickr – Images_of_Money, woodleywonderworks. Photos8
Looking into the future – pensions style!
A very short post today for Halloween!
We are obliged to those nice legal people at Hogan Lovells for their Monthly Pension Planner. Click here and by a spooky coincidence you’ll be taken to the full document.
If you’re involved in pensions either as a Trustee or someone that has to make key decisions regarding pensions and benefits this will be useful. Hogan Lovells have set out the short, medium and long term issues that you may need to keep on your pensions radar.
If you want to avoid a pensions nightmare having a quick scan through to check what’s on the horizon would be well worth it.
More of a treat than a trick really.
Steve Clark
Don’t leave your pension on auto-pilot!
The media is full of doom and gloom regarding the fact that Annuity rates are at an all-time low. Annuity rates are the factors used by insurance companies to decide how much pension they’ll pay you for your pension savings. Low rates are bad news if you are heading for retirement.
The majority of people getting to retirement rely on buying a pension but remain unaware that over recent years annuity rates have consistently fallen.
As Billy Burrows, director of Better Retirement Group, puts it:
“Annuity rates have been falling almost continuously since 1990. Back then, the annuity rate for a 65-year-old man was more than 15.5%; today it is less than 6.5%, a fall in excess of 50%. In August, annuity income fell by more than £300 a year, or 5%, making this the largest monthly fall on record.”
Pension Airways
Pension planning is a bit like taking a flight. It takes a lot of effort, time and a bit of money to get airborne and on your way to your retirement destination. You need to make sure you know where you’re going, when you are going to get there and that you’ve got enough fuel to get there. You’ll also need to check if there’s anything on your route that’s likely to disrupt you – e.g. bad weather.
If you are some way away from retirement once you are in the air and have reached cruising altitude you can put your plan on “auto-pilot” and check every so often that you are still on the right course.
However, as you get closer to retirement and your final descent you really need to be back at the controls and making all those key decisions and judgements that will help you land safely for your retirement.
My Pension Roadmap
We want to start working with you on your journey towards retirement. That’s why we’ve created our subscription service called My Pension Roadmap. You can read more about it here and here.
We’d love to meet with you or your employees to help you start planning for retirement. Contact us for a free initial meeting to see how we can help.
Don’t leave your retirement plans on auto-pilot – contact us today!
Steve Clark