Auto Enrolment for New Companies

April 2017 is the month where a whole section of companies will begin to have auto enrolment duties and this latest group takes into account any business that does not use a PAYE scheme. Although it is unlikely many of this group will have action to take given they almost certainly don’t have any employees to enrol, it is still important to ensure all regulatory duties are fulfilled such as, completing the declaration of compliance or notifying their exception to The Pensions Regular.

Later in 2017, the system of who has a staging date and automatic enrolment duties will evolve to help deal with new business on an ongoing basis. As a reminder, the following provides a timetable for employers of staging dates for those that started paying PAYE income for the first time after 1^st April 2012:

Staging dates for employers who set up after 1 April 2012

Date PAYE income first payable	Staging date
Between 1 April 2012 and 31 March 2013	1 May 2017
Between 1 April 2013 and 31 March 2014	1 July 2017
Between 1 April 2014 and 31 March 2015	1 August 2017
Between 1 April 2015 and 31 December 2015	1 October 2017
Between 1 January 2016 and 30 September 2016	1 November 2017
Between 1 October 2016 and 30 June 2017	1 January 2018
Between 1 July 2017 and 30 September 2017	1 February 2018

 

The change comes later in the year when any new business who starts to pay PAYE income from 1^st October 2017 will have auto enrolment duties immediately. In effect, this means that a business starting after October will have to deal with auto enrolment and be ready to offer a workplace pension earlier than a business that started the previous month, although this anomaly will only last for a short period.

There will be a level of expectation from business advisors that alongside the liability insurance, company registration, employment contracts and all the other advice that is generally provided, auto enrolment should now be incorporated into any new business set up process.

As is often the case, an understanding of what is expected and/or support from professional advisors will ensure the Qualifying Workplace Pension is set up correctly and working in harmony with the payroll software.  It can also help ensure employee communications are done correctly in a timely manner and will help avoid common misconceptions such as using postponement means there is nothing to do during that period. Companies will have the opportunity to utilise the normal postponement rules so this may be a way of helping time management during the business set up, but it does not mean there are no auto enrolment obligations.

We will be more than happy to help guide any business through the auto enrolment process and potentially save a lot of research and administration time that would be better used in other areas of the business, especially for new start-ups.

For further information or advice on your auto enrolment obligations please contact Richard Petrie, Corporate Benefits Manager or your usual AAB contact.