Auto enrolment ???

[wing commander]

   We are starting auto enrolment,the goverments new pension plan for everyone...Just wondered what the take up was by everyone on here..Everyone has to opt in to start with but can then opt out straight out...The worry for me is that it appears the government has direct access to the money generated to spend on what they like...Gambling on the fact they can put it back in again....The protection doesn't seem that great to me and I'm sure the public service workers ie fireman who thought they had been getting one thing for years and have just had there pensions swiped from under there noses by a stroke of a government pen would have a opinion on the trust factor...Interested in your thoughts though??

[Glyn_Wigley]

It's not just swiping the money, pushing the onus of doing something onto the public is one way of slashing paying civil servants who know the system and how it works properly from doing it for the general public. It's the same reason self-assessment was brought in for Income Tax, so that you have to work out how much you owe rather than paying someone who knows what they're doing to work it out.

And no doubt the people who you call up if you have queries are in a Capita callcentre like Manvers and only know as much about it as Capita can get away with 'training' them, and will give you a duff answer like those at Capita who answer the phones for the DWP...

[Draytonian III]

I opted out 3 years ago when it first came out and I did so again at the beginning of this year when it came around again , the government want  the taxpayers money to bail them out.

[BobG]

If you were ever interested in setting aside some dosh for a pension, there's another way of doing it which has some attractions. You can invest lump sums or regular amounts into an AVC. Once it's in there it's like any other pension pot. You can take upto 25% as cash and whatever is left as a pension. What's interesting though is the fact that if you are a basic rate taxpayer all the tax you paid on earning that money (i.e. 20%) is reclaimed by your AVC provider and invested in your pension alongside the the money you stuck in yourself. Of course, if you are lucky enough to be a higher rate texpayer the gravy is much, much thicker. The same 20% is reclaimed and invested by the AVC provider but the remaining tax you paid, another other 20%, you claim back from the Inland Revenue.  They pay back quite quickly too. So you end up with basically 120% of your  money invested at a cost of 80% of what you first thought it was. It's money for old rope tbh.

BobG

[rich1471]

How can they claim all the tax you paid as that means you pay nothing to the inland revenue and it just goes into a pension pot that's a descent amount per year

[Jenny]

The contributions I pay under auto enrolment get paid directly into my personal pension pot & therefore I am pretty certain the gvmt has no access to it whatsoever.

[Filo]

How can they claim all the tax you paid as that means you pay nothing to the inland revenue and it just goes into a pension pot that's a descent amount per year

All the tax paid when earning the amount of Avc's. For example if you earn £300 you pay tax on that £300, but if you pay £20 AVC the tax you have paid on that £20 gets reclaimed, meaning you've esrned £300 and paid tax on £280