Latest Countdown Bulletin published
09 January 2020
The latest Countdown Bulletin provides important guidance and updates to pension scheme administrators about the end of contracting-out.
Although contracting-out came to an end in April 2016, schemes are still submitting termination and transfer notices with end dates on or after 6 April 2016.
The National Insurance Services to Pensions Industry (NISPI) countdown bulletins provide additional guidance for pension scheme administrators to enable them to make sure all individuals contracted-out pension rights are secured correctly.
Countdown Bulletin 50 has updates on the revised proposed solution for automatically allocating payments, along with useful links and contact details.
The information given is that HMRC has reviewed the option of automatically allocating payments received from pension schemes for individual members of their scheme. Multiple pension schemes have made part payments towards the debt that they have already been notified of by HMRC and HMRC cannot identify the specific scheme members that part payments were made for. Throughout the Scheme Reconciliation Service, HMRC has followed up on queries in order to protect the interests of individuals and their pension entitlements.
To allow HMRC to continue to provide the same service levels and protect the interests of individuals, it has drawn advice from Pension Schemes Administrators, who will now be responsible for finding the individual members they want the part payment allocated to.
The advice is that if you administer a scheme that has either not paid or paid in full you may want to reconsider that decision. If you decide to part pay, you will need to advise HMRC about the part payment amount and the specific members that the part payment needs to be allocated to.
HMRC will publish details on the process that all schemes need to follow in due course. The extra information will affect the original timeline HMRC published for the issue of the final data cuts. A timeline to take this into consideration will be provided once the allocation timeline is understood.
Previous editions of the Countdown Bulletin are also available on GOV.UK.
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