All Pensions articles – Page 140
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Article
European Court rules out VAT exemption for DB plans
The landmark ruling upheld HM Revenue and Customs’ (HMRC) case in a legal battle with the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) and Wheels Common Investment Fund (WCIF).The CJEU ruled that DB schemes are not special investment funds and so are not exempt from VAT on investment management services.Jack Wheeler, ...
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Article
Employee Benefits Connect: Auto-enrolment is just first step
Employers must think about ongoing processes, for example if there are seasonal workers who need to be enrolled later, he said.
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Video
Tim Middleton: Governance challenges for a DC pension's default fund
Tim Middleton, technical consultant at the Pensions Management Institute, talks to Jennifer Paterson, senior reporter at Employee Benefits, about the governance issues to consider in relation to pension investment fund selection for defined contribution (DC) pension schemes.Contract-based and trust-based DC schemes have slightly different pressures, but both need to take ...
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Article
Buyer's guide to contract-based defined contribution pensions
The pensions landscape is changing dramatically as the first wave of large employers continue to implement auto-enrolment and new regulations take effect. So far this year, a new initiative or consultation has been announced every few days, reflecting the government’s focus on pensions.For defined contribution (DC) schemes, a critical initiative ...
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Opinion
Mel Duffield: Staff need support when buying an annuity
This is the point at which the employee’s pension pot is at its largest and when they stand to lose the most, both from their own and their employer’s pension contributions, by making a poor decision or simply failing to act. Reaching retirement and purchasing an annuity is a one-off ...
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Article
Personal allowance increase could impact auto-enrolment
Budget 2013: The increase in the personal allowance to £10,000 a year could mean fewer employees are auto-enrolled into a workplace pension scheme.The increase, announced by Chancellor George Osborne in the 2013 Budget, will take effect from 2014/15.But Zoe Lynch, a partner at law firm Sackers, said: “The numbers being ...
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Article
Government brings forward NI increases for DB pensions
Budget 2013: The government has brought forward an increase in national insurance contributions (NICs) for employers with contracted-out defined benefit (DB) pension schemes by a year.The move results from Chancellor George Osborne’s confirmation in his 2013 Budget speech that members of a DB scheme will no longer be able to ...
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Article
TPR tasked with new objective on DB pension funding
Budget 2013: The government has tasked The Pensions Regulator (TPR) with a new objective to support defined benefit (DB) pension scheme funding arrangements, which are compatible with sustainable growth for the employer and fully consistent with 2004 funding legislation.The precise wording of the new objective will be set out in ...
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Article
Government confirms removal of contracting out
Budget 2013: The government has confirmed that defined benefit (DB) pension scheme members will no longer have the ability to contract out of the State Second Pension (SSP) from 2016/17.The SSP will end as a result of the introduction of the single-tier state pension, which will begin from 2016/17.From this ...
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Article
AWD Chase de Vere launches auto-enrolment product
Independent financial adviser AWD Chase de Vere has launched an auto-enrolment product for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).Its product, AE+, has been designed to meet SMEs’ requirements around auto-enrolment duties.AE+ enables employers to meet their own objectives from complying with the basic requirements of the legislation to structuring a full ...
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Article
Aviva achieves less than 1% auto-enrolment opt-outs
Aviva has seen 127 employees opt out of its pension scheme following its auto-enrolment staging date on 1 February.The provider already had 17,542 (99%) of its employees in a defined contribution (DC) money purchase trust-based scheme. An additional 332 were auto-enrolled on 1 February, 38% of whom chose to opt ...
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Article
Pension deficits down by £70bn
Pension deficits fell by £70 billion to £551 billion in February, according to research by Xafinity Corporate Solutions.Its Corporate pension deficits tracker attributed the deficits to the slowing outlook for price inflation during the month and the strength of equity markets in 2013.Hugh Creasy, director at Xafinity Corporate Solutions (pictured), ...
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Article
Cookson Group appoints DB pension administrator
Cookson Group has appointed a third-party administrator to its £500-million defined benefit (DB) pension scheme.The scheme, which has 5,500 members, will transfer to Premier in June 2013.In January 2013, the group signed its second bulk-annuity policy with provider Pension Insurance Corporation.Allan Course, chair of trustees for the Cookson Group pension ...
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Article
UK DB pension deficits fall
The aggregate deficit of private sector defined benefit (DB) pension schemes potentially eligible for entry to the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) decreased in February 2013, according to research by the PPF.The PPF 7800 index found that the aggregate deficit of 6,316 schemes decreased from £211.2 billion at the end of ...
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Article
Cardiff University plans for auto-enrolment
Cardiff University will auto-enrol staff who are not currently pension scheme members into one of two existing pension schemes or the national employment savings trust (Nest) when it reaches its staging date on 1 April 2013.The majority of the university’s 6,000-strong workforce are already members of a pension scheme so ...
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Article
UK Chamber of Shipping extends pension buy-in
The trustees of the UK Chamber of Shipping’s defined benefit (DB) pension plan have agreed an extension to its buy-in arrangement for the scheme.The arrangement, which was initially agreed with Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC) in January 2013, includes the deferred members of the plan, representing about 20% of the scheme ...
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Article
FTSE 100 pension deficit improves
The total deficit of FTSE 100 defined benefit (DB) pension schemes improved by £8 billion in 2012, according to research by JLT Pension Capital Strategies.This found that the total deficit of FTSE 100 pension schemes at 30 December 2012 was estimated to be £50 billion.It also found that the total ...
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Article
New adviser for local government pension
The Northern Ireland Local Government Officers’ Superannuation Committee (NILGOSC) has appointed an actuarial adviser to its local government pension scheme for Northern Ireland.Aon Hewitt will be working closely with the committee and its officers to help manage the £4 billion fund, which has 90,000 members.David Murphy, chief executive and secretary ...
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Article
Auto-enrolment legislation deemed unnecessarily complex
Auto-enrolment legislation is considered unnecessarily complex or difficult by HR, payroll and finance professionals, according to research by Ceridian.Its survey of more than 600 HR, payroll and finance professionals found that 76% considered auto-enrolment legislation to be either unnecessarily complex or difficult.Of these, 22% of respondents considered auto-enrolment legislation to ...
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Article
HMRC wins legal battle against NAPF
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has won a legal battle against the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) and Wheels Common Investment Fund (WCIF) over the payment of VAT by defined benefit (DB) schemes.The Court of Justice of European Union (CJEU) ruled that the DB schemes are not special investment ...