Can employees reduce their pension contributions?
- Remember that employees will also be making contributions on any reduced wage under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme. The amount contributed may be less, but the contribution rate will be the same, unless the following applies.
- Employees may reduce their DC employee contributions if their scheme rules allow them to do so, but no further than the statutory minimum if the scheme qualifies as the employer’s auto-enrolment vehicle.
- Employees might choose to opt-out or cease active membership of their scheme, which might cause a spike in administration at a time when administrators are likely to be understaffed. It is important that employers remember they must not do anything to encourage or induce employees from leaving an auto-enrolment vehicle as this may constitute an offence.
- Employees who leave their scheme in this way will have to be re-enrolled in due course as and when required by law.
- For DB schemes, specific considerations apply (see the last section, below).
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Head of Commercial, Colin Hewitt, speaks with the team at NewcastleGateshead Initiative about the complexities of event cancellations and the associated legal implications.
Click here to listen to the full podcast.
Yes, you can ask to see any information/documentation sent to an employee informing them that they should self-isolate.
Employers who have apprentices on fixed-term contracts due to end during the pandemic should discuss arrangements with the apprentices including whether an extension to the contract can be offered to allow them to complete their apprenticeship.
Yes, if there is a contractual right to do so. Furloughed employees who start work with another employer during this time must inform HMRC that they have another job.
It is possible to review working arrangements for contractors before the new rules come into effect. This will require immediate action.
You could consider terminating current contracts and entering into new terms that reflect working arrangements for a self-employment arrangement.
Another possibility is encouraging contractors to abandon the PSC model and provide services under a compliant umbrella company.
In the event of a determination of employed status you should seek to enter new terms that at the very least reflect the new tax arrangements .