In their most recent quarterly bulletin the Pension Regulator revealed that they have issued the first fixed penalty notices. A fixed penalty notice under section 40 of the pensions act 2008 of £400 for failure to comply with an unpaid contributions notice or compliance note.
According to their research and analysis employers are failing to comply with their auto enrolment duties because of a lack of information in the following areas:
Self-Employment
Auto Enrolment duties can apply to self-employed people with a contract and are those who are not undertaking the work as part of their own business. Fixed term or non-permanent workers should be assessed under the same criteria as other workers.
Postponement
Whether an employer postpones or not, their staging date remains the same. This means that they still have duties from their staging date. These include: issuing worker communications, postponement notices, and facilitating opt-in requests.
Opting In or Out
All eligible job holders must be Auto enrolled before they can chose to opt out. Employers must take immediate action to establish the workers enrolment date upon receipt of a valid opt-in notice.
Reassessing Eligibility
Employers must assess workers who may have previously been ineligible at each pay reference period to see if eligibility criteria have been triggered. They must also undertake further ongoing assessments in respect of workers ages, new starters, and the end of postponement or transitional periods.
The pension regulators research suggests that some small and micro employers don’t know when they need to comply with Auto Enrolment. In addition many queries revealed that some employers were unaware that the law applied to them.
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