Posts Tagged ‘State Pension’
The Universe will provide!
Those all round good eggs at DLA Piper have just released their Be Aware March Edition of their monthly employment law newsletter. You can click through to it here.
There’s a really good article by Mary Clarke looking at Salary Sacrifice, Childcare Vouchers and the changes that come into play in April.
If you run one of these schemes it’s worth a read. If you don’t offer a Childcare Voucher scheme for your employees it’s still worth looking at – even after the changes. As a low cost benefit that is greatly appreciated by parents it’s a good way of extending your benefit programme at a time when costs are under scrutiny.
If you need any further help on Salary Sacrifice or Childcare Vouchers please drop us a line here.
The Devil is in the Detail – Retirement Age Regulations Published
You’ll probably remember that we wrote in our blog recently about the removal of the Default Retirement Age from April. The post is here.
Just a short post today to keep you up to speed. As you know we aim to trawl through all the information slushing about online to bring you stuff that’s relevant, fresh and that we think you’ll find interesting. If you are not one of our clients we’re sure that your advisers will be doing the same for you, won’t they?
Those all round good eggs at DLA Piper LLP have issued an update on the new regulations that have been issued by the government regarding the removal of the Default Retirement Age. In the old days the ink would still have been wet it’s the information is so fresh!
You can click through to the article here. There’s some really good stuff in there on Group Insured Benefits and the Transitional Arrangements as well as an excellent summary under Implications. I must say that the stuff that DLA Piper issue is really good like that in giving a good clear summary.
The insured benefit stuff isn’t quite as we were led to believe. In the previous post we wondered whether the government would “walk the talk”. Well the good news is that it has – almost.
The exemption only applies to employees who are the older of 65 or State Pensionable Age. At the moment that’s not a problem as they are broadly the same – younger for women. The government are planning to move us all to a State Pensionable Age of 68 in the future. That means you could be looking at covering employees up to 68.
Employers will need to give some thought to whether they still want to provide benefits like life assurance, income protection and critical illness to employees over State Pensionable Age.
As if you didn’t have enough on your plate to think about!
The Universe will provide!
Mark is a client and friend of mine I have known now for probably ten years. I’ve learned a lot from Mark over these years.
One of Mark’s mantras is that “the Universe will provide”. In other words do all the right things in life and things will happen for the good – often out of the blue. And funnily enough they do! Mark has held some really good positions in various companies in the horticulture sector At times things haven’t worked out but Mark’s positive attitude has ensured that things fall into shape. It’s also a self fulfilling prophecy. It’s a bit like Gary Player’s often quoted retort to a journalist when he said “the more I practice, the luckier I get”.
Mark is one of the people that I make a point of speaking to when I need an injection of positivity. Sometimes, in the early stages of thinking about leaving behind the well paid job I had doubts, insecurities, worries about it all. A phone call or lunch with Mark is all that it takes to inject a positive outlook and for me to see things with added clarity and vision. Everyone should have someone like Mark.
Thinking today about Mark’s mantra I felt a sense of worry. Not for my own future but for that of a whole generation of the UK population. The worrying thing for most people in the UK – and this cuts across age, sex, income – is that they believe the Universe (or more accurately the Government or some mythical benefactor) will provide for them. However, unlike Mark who actually puts in an enormous amount of unseen effort (think swan under the surface here) these people are doing little or nothing. And that’s worrying.
As a nation we are sleep walking towards a very poor old age with the prospect of continuing to work till we are all well into our late 60’s. The latest Government changes to the State Pension Age just underline that. Compulsory pensions when they come will simply lull most people into a false sense of security as to what they will get when they retire. More of all this in later posts.
Meanwhile, I’ll carry on worrying and hope that the adage about the cobbler’s children having the worse shoes doesn’t apply to financial planners.