Businesses from across the Tees Valley took the opportunity to quiz a representative of The Pensions Regulator at a special briefing organised by Chartered Accountants and Business Advisers Waltons Clark Whitehill.
At the event, held to give local businesses more information about auto-enrolment, business people listened to a talk from Stephen Rowntree of The Pensions Regulator about upcoming staging and declaration dates, before having the opportunity to ask their own questions. Members of the Waltons Clark Whitehill team and pensions specialists from Wise Financial were also on hand to answer any queries.
Auto-enrolment, which has already been implemented in large and medium sized businesses is now been rolled out in small firms too. In each quarter of 2016 thousands of companies across the Tees Valley will need to comply with auto-enrolment regulations, with any non-compliant firms subject to criminal prosecution.
Heather O’Driscoll, Managing Director of Waltons Clark Whitehill, said: “It is absolutely essential that businesses are ready for auto-enrolment well in advance of their staging dates. Every month hundreds of local companies have to start complying with these new rules, and they need to be able to prove that they have done this.
“Our team at Waltons has helped countless clients to prepare for auto-enrolment, along with all other kinds of accounting, tax and pension compliance. It is estimated that £25 million of fines have already been handed out to SMEs for missing auto-enrolment dates, and a number of high-profile cases show the Government are serious about enforcement.”
Stephen Rowntree said: “It is vital that businesses don’t miss their staging and declaration dates. My advice is that business owners should contact their accountant or pensions expert well in advance of their staging date to ensure they have an appropriate scheme in place, if they leave it to the last minute they are risking a fine.”
An employer’s staging date is determined by the number of people in the PAYE scheme that they use, based on the data from HM Revenue and Customs. Employers can find their staging date by visiting The Pensions Regulators’ website and entering their PAYE reference. Following the success of this briefing, Waltons Clark Whitehill hope to hold a similar event later in the year.