• All schemes considered; Stakeholder, Group Personal Pensions, CIMPs and COMPs
• Reduce your National Insurance costs with Salary Sacrifice
• Manage your pension funds to avoid deficits

The last ten years has seen a raft of employee pension legislation which means company owners, directors and trustees now have to make some form of pension scheme available to their employees (if they employ five or more people).

Two of the most important changes were the Welfare Reform and Pension Act 1999, which introduced the Stakeholder Pension and “A” Day on 6 April 2006.

With punitive fines and sanctions if things go wrong, it is important that a company obtains the right advice about setting these up. Forum Wealth Management can design a scheme that is right for your company as well as advising on taxation, trustee and regulatory requirements a company may have.

There are several types of scheme which we have listed below:

Occupational money purchase pension schemes
Some employers offer these pension schemes - sometime called 'defined contribution schemes'. They do not provide a pension based on your salary or pensionable service. Instead, they build up a pension fund that you convert into an income when you retire. Usually, the employer contributes to the scheme and there are trustees who look after scheme members' interests. When you retire, your scheme administrator will buy a lifetime annuity for you or you may be able to buy one yourself.

Occupational salary-related pension schemes
Some employers offer these schemes, which provide a defined income relative to the members salary and number of years in the pension scheme, irrespective of the investment returns from the pension fund. They are sometimes called 'defined benefit' or 'final salary' schemes. The employer contributes to the scheme and there are trustees who look after scheme members' interests. You can only get salary-related pensions through an employer. These can be very expensive and most companies are now closing these off to new members of staff.

Group Personal Pension Scheme
Where individual members run through an affiliated group with the employer providing contributions and the benefits coming from the investment returns. Staff members can take the pension with them when they leave and the scheme is fairly easy to run. There is no compulsion on the employer to contribute, but they are responsible for collecting the premiums.

Stakeholder Pension
Introduced in April 2001, it requires employers to deduct their employees pension contributions from their payroll. These are money purchase schemes and can be drawn between the ages of 50-75. Contributions are paid net of the basic tax rate with higher rate tax payers claiming the extra tax back. Up to £300 per month can be paid into a fund irrespective of your salary.

At Forum Wealth Management, we have helped companies both large and small set-up employee pension schemes.