school cleaner pension

chrisyklx1

I work for a local authority as a school cleaner for the past 2 years, i have not paid into the pension but am debating wether to start. any advice please

jem16

You shouldn't be debating - get in there and join!

You have wasted the last 2 years by not joining so don't waste any more time.

chrisyklx1

ok, thanks for your quick post

atush

Join. Today.

RichandJ

What jem & atush said.

You might pay between 5 & 10% of your PRE tax salary^, your employer will put in anywhere from 15 to 30+%. As others are fond of saying, this is free money (in effect it's not as your salary will probably reflect the humongous employer conts required to provide you with an excellent* benefit under the local government scheme).

* No political point intended, just a statement of fact given employee conts.

^ in other words the contributions won't be taxed, therefore, your taxable income & thus the tax you actually pay on it, will be reduced.

Grab it with both hands, your teeth & maybe a toe or three.

Your alternative is to give up a nice, albeit probably small, income in retirement for a small saving now. Private sector taxpayers will thank
you if you do (including me) but my innate honesty (if you can believe that of any Internet poster) compels me to say grabbit.

Koicarp

RichandJ wrote: »

your employer will put in anywhere from 15 to 30+%.

According to Hutton (just checked), the employer contribution is 13.2% and employee 5.5-7.5%.

RichandJ

Koicarp wrote: »

According to Hutton (just checked), the employer contribution is 13.2% and employee 5.5-7.5%.

The actual employer contribution will be whatever is required to provide the final salary (or CARE) benefit, this will vary over time.

Koicarp

As LGPS is a funded scheme I thought contributions would remain stable? Can you explain further?

chrisyklx1

i'll be phoning them today to join, thanks everyone for your advice.

Andy_L

Koicarp wrote: »

As LGPS is a funded scheme I thought contributions would remain stable? Can you explain further?

The employer,will, if the fund does not produce the expected returns, have to make good any shortfall (or conversely benefit from any excess). Some LGPS's are in deficit so the employer is having to pay more than that contribution rate to make good the shortfall

Le_Chuck

Koicarp wrote: »

As LGPS is a funded scheme I thought contributions would remain stable? Can you explain further?

The employee contributions are progressive. The higher your salary the higher the rate. The employer contribution is determined by the actuary on a triannual basis (mine is 14.4%, down from 14.5% the previous 3 years & 13.8% the 3 before that)