Hi all,
I've got a few payrolls that we never registered for PAYE as the employees were under the NI threshold. One of those clients came to me today to discuss auto enrolment as she has an employee who obviously isn't earning enough to be auto enrolled but has requested to join a scheme (which I understand everyone no matter how little they're earning is entitled to do).
My question is what would the staging date be for these employers? And do I now need to get them registered? If I register them will there staging date be 1st November 2017 (for employers set up between 1st Jan 16 and 30th Sept 16) or will it be linked to when the payroll actually started?
Many thanks in advance.
Replies (8)
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April 2017 is the unified staging date for employers with paid staff but no PAYE scheme.
You are under no obligation to have a scheme in place before that time, so he can only ask to join once that date has passed.
And as the employee is earning under the £112 p/w required for you to have a PAYE scheme, they will only be an "Entitled Worker", so the scheme doesn't even have to be AE compliant. Common sense says that a compliant scheme would make sense though, just in case.
There are procedures for bringing your staging date forward if you wish, and I'd suggest looking at the TPR website for that if interested.
Hope that helps
No Ref Needed
As with registering with TPR, I have seen a box in all the providers I have worked with to tick if you have no scheme, though I am not sure if that has effects on the actual scheme. That's something to pick up with individual providers. NEST for example has an obligation to take any and all, so I'm sure they can help you
The Pensions Regulator
I've had a few tricky situations recently concerning Auto Enrolment and have found the Pensions Regulator website to be very helpful. An email enquiry is answered within 5 days tops and it will, at least, give you a definitive answer.
A note of caution
... we never registered for PAYE as the employees were under the NI threshold.
We are assuming that you mean the NI Lower Earnings Limit of £112 a week and not the primary threshold for NI contributions of £155 a week, because if any employee earns at least the LEL in any pay period - £112 a week or £486 a month - the employer must register for a PAYE scheme, even though no NI contributions may be due. The employer must also register for PAYE if any employee has another job or pension, which would require tax to be deducted.
That said, I agree with HuntFord and would only add that if an "Entitled worker" (earning less than the LEL) asks for a pension scheme, the employer does not even have to contribute - he just has to administer the deductions from the employee's wages and to pay over the contributions to the pension company.