The Society of Pension Consultants has launched a service to provide employers with information about pensions changes being introduced from A-Day. It has published a guide on its website entitled The new lifetime allowance and your benefits that is intended as a background to the changes tabled for April next year.
Secretary John Mortimer said: "We are trying to help the industry to deal with the transition as smoothly as possible. Lots of [employees] are going to want information to decide whether they need further information to protect their existing entitlements."
The statement outlines planned primary and enhanced protection methods for funds in excess of the defined lifetime allowance for tax-privileged pensions, scheduled to be £1.5 million for the tax year 2006/2007. Additional taxes of up to 25% could be levied in the absence of protection. Employees would have three years from April 6 next year to register funds for protection.
Mortimer said the document was kept simple to help employers which administer pension schemes, but are not yet conversant with the changes.
The report can be downloaded from www.spc.uk.com/htm/Lifetime%20Allowance.pdf