My client is an associate dentist. He has received his pension statement and noticed that his employer is declaring a lower earnings figure for the NHS pension scheme than he has actually earned.The usual deductions have been taken into account.
Has anybody else come across this. They are not a great deal out and do not cross contribution bands.
I would appreciate any advice please.
Many thanks.
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Superannuation
It is quite a complex situation these days. Back in the days of when a dental associate was paid 50% of the gross contract value, the superannuable income was simply 43.9% of the contract value. The NHS stipulate 43.9% as the proportion that they average an associate earns after accounting for all expenses including laboratory bills etc.
In recent years, the pay percentage that a dental provider pays an associate has dropped from 50% to usually anywhere between 25% and 45%. Subsequently, the 43.9% is now often calculated from 2x the paid UDA rate. However, those that administer the superannuation system leave the split within a practice purely to the dental provider. I have seen situations where the provider doesn't want to add to their own already massive superannuation pot so increase that of the associates (whether right or wrong), but more often where the provider attempts to minimise that of the associates to elevate their own (with the superannuation being believed to be an excellent pension). Th provider has a ceiling of how much superannuable income they can declare so taking of one dentist in the practice means there is more remaining for another (maybe themselves).
Wherever the figures are not far out, it is sometimes due to the figures that the providers have for the number of UDAs performed by each performer. Each dental associate on their own dental portal login can find accurate information for what they have done, whereas the information provided to the provider on their portal login is more practice specific rather than performer specific. This often leads to the figures that the providers have being slightly out. It's always useful for the providers to have access to the dental portal of the associates to ensure the figures are 100% accurate. This does present a problem where an associate works in more than one practice and does not want each practice knowing what they do in the other.
I've had lots of people advice different things n this area but this is an amalgamation of the advice I have heard.