'Not got a pension? You will do in two years!' blog discussion

matchmade

As a small businessman, the thing that most concerns me about NEST is the cost to employers. Very few people take any interest in how hard it is to be an employer, but this compulsory scheme adds yet more burdens to my payroll and my administrative costs, in addition to PAYE, NI and all the rest. This is on top of the recent increase in NI taxes, the increase in corporation tax, and the fact that if I employ a woman and she gets pregnant, I'm the one who has to cough up 9 months of maternity pay even though she's doing absolutely no work and is dragging down my business. Meanwhile as a self-employed person no-one's making any free contributions to *my* pension or pays me if I fall sick or want occasionally to take a holiday.

This government consistently sees employers as cash cows to fund its social programmes, and just keeps adding burdens, making it less and less attractive to bother running a business and employing other people. What's the point of all the extra work and stress of being an employer, when the Government takes so much money from all directions and basically sees employers as a branch of social services? I find it laughable and unbelievable that when the Tories say they will not implement the rise in NI, the Government accuses them of "taking £6 billion out of the economy". What economy? Why, the bloated public sector, which now consumes an utterly disgraceful 53% of all national spending and requires us to borrow £1 in every £4 that is spent. Cancelling a £6 billion tax rise is not withdrawing spending: it's leaving the money in the hands of ordinary employers and employees who spend it instead on a useful mix of consumption, savings and economic investment.

jamesd

dots_thots wrote: »

After doing some more digging it does look like I may be able to opt-out although I can't get a definitive answer. Can anyone confirm this for definite?

It's definite though you'll have to do it every two years. You can safely untwist your knickers.

Batchy

matchmade wrote: »

As a small businessman, the thing that most concerns me about NEST is the cost to employers. Very few people take any interest in how hard it is to be an employer, but this compulsory scheme adds yet more burdens to my payroll and my administrative costs, in addition to PAYE, NI and all the rest. This is on top of the recent increase in NI taxes, the increase in corporation tax, and the fact that if I employ a woman and she gets pregnant, I'm the one who has to cough up 9 months of maternity pay even though she's doing absolutely no work and is dragging down my business. Meanwhile as a self-employed person no-one's making any free contributions to *my* pension or pays me if I fall sick or want occasionally to take a holiday.

This government consistently sees employers as cash cows to fund its social programmes, and just keeps adding burdens, making it less and less attractive to bother running a business and employing other people. What's the point of all the extra work and stress of being an employer, when the Government takes so much money from all directions and basically sees employers as a branch of social services? I find it laughable and unbelievable that when the Tories say they will not implement the rise in NI, the Government accuses them of "taking £6 billion out of the economy". What economy? Why, the bloated public sector, which now consumes an utterly disgraceful 53% of all national spending and requires us to borrow £1 in every £4 that is spent. Cancelling a £6 billion tax rise is not withdrawing spending: it's leaving the money in the hands of ordinary employers and employees who spend it instead on a useful mix of consumption, savings and economic investment.

doesnt statutory maternity pay get offset with the business PAYE NO tax liability due?

dots_thots

1maia wrote: »

all ideas gratefully considered:)

I've "private messaged" you rather than talk about it in the thread because it is off topic. I mention it here only because I noticed you're a new member and it's not that easy to notice the private message feature - also you may be looking for replies without logging in.

tonyperks

Is this not an ideal opportunity to reform the Government Final Salary or Career Averaging Pension Schemes ?

If it's good enough for the private sector, it must be good enough for all new entrants to the Public Sector !!!

Pauld58

There's no reason why the retirement age (for a state pension) should not have been dropped to 62.5 years for all. Due to modern technology, industrial automation, new production techniques and computer technology never before have people been able to produce and do so much, just look at how many man hours it now takes to make an average car and the fact that an adult average wage earner can buy a new car for 4 months wages compared to the same things 50 years ago. When you add to that the fact that there are now more people in full time employment than ever before and often both adults of a couple are working full time which means that on average the couple can both afford to earn less individually and there have never been so many people remaining in full time education that it becomes apparent that we can easily afford to fund retirement at 62.5 years and probably 60 years. So why is the retirement age going up? There are some fabulously rich people who want to remain that way or get much richer who are managing to arrange things the way they want them and some of the things they are doing is making sure more people are in full time employment working as many hours as possible for as many years as possible.