Are you?  If you’re not… you really need to be!

Have you seen the adverts that the Government are now showing on TV.  If you haven’t then you soon will.  Due to rising concerns over looming pension shortfalls, and in light of many people not making sufficient financial provision for their retirements, major pension reforms are being brought in. These workplace pension reforms will affect all employers and are another instance of the Government bringing in sweeping changes aimed at reducing their costs, and passing the expense and time burden on to businesses. If you have, or intend to have in the future, employees working for your business these new reforms will be applicable to you.

The new pensions legislation is being introduced from October 2012 and will affect all businesses with employees.  This is not a time to bury your head in the sand. If you do not act quickly and start to put plans in place it could have seriously detrimental implications for you and your business:

• It will cost you 3{af331c3cb52abe27a47f1f5b71fb5068c938efb8d5a4e6cddc7f2780f48bb99c} extra on your payroll
• You could face a fixed penalty notice of £400 and be fined £500 per day for non-compliance
• Potential 2 year prison sentences for wilful failure to comply with the requirements
• An administrative nightmare if you do nothing and leave it to the last minute. This is in addition to the Real Time Information reforms which will impact from April 2013.
• You will have little option but to fall in line with the Government Based Schemes such as NEST and the People’s pension. Early action will give you the option of setting up other government endorsed pension schemes which will offer you far greater flexibility.

All the above can be avoided provided that you understand what the requirements are, how they affect you, and take action now rather than leaving it till you simply have no choice.

As part of our proactive approach at DEB Chartered Accountants in advising our clients, and other local businesses, we will be providing, at our own cost, a series of seminars aimed at providing business owners with the insight to enable them to keep their costs and admin to as little as possible, whist fully complying with the new regulations. We feel that now is the time to start addressing the upcoming changes and would therefore like to invite you to intend one of several seminars we will be holding at DEB House during November 2012.  We anticipate demand will be high but are keen to keep the number of attendees at each seminar to no more than 8. In light of this we would kindly request that you contact DEB Chartered Accountants on 01226 245824 to book your place. The seminars will be held on the mornings of the 14^th, 20^th and 22^nd November.