Company Pension query

Hydetribe

If I decide to work past my retirement date, do my Company still have to make contributions into my pension plan ?

Malthusian

If you're working past your retirement date then it's not your retirement date?

If you mean your State Pension Age: if you are over State Pension Age, under 75 and have sufficient qualifying earnings, your employer does not have to automatically enrol you into a pension scheme anymore, but you can still opt in to the scheme and your employer has to pay in.

Hydetribe

Lol, see what you mean - thanks for your reply.

Ok, to reword, if I reach State Pension Age and continue to work, does my employer have to continue making contributions to the Scheme or can they elect to cease making contributions?

xylophone

Are you a member of an occupational pension scheme?


If so, what does your scheme booklet have to say?


Once past state pension age, you will not pay NI contributions.

https://www.gov.uk/employee-reaches-state-pension-age

Hydetribe

Don’t know which type of pension - will have to fish the paperwork out and have a look. Thanks for replying

xylophone

Don’t know which type of pension

Time to wise up.....:)

Fermion

Be careful and check your companies HR policies; many large companies now do not allow you to retire but force you to resign when drawing your pension. I worked for a large multi national IT outsource/business services company and they changed their procedures in 2012 to force employees to resign. As a result I nearly lost my large annual retrospective bonus when I retired because HR claimed that it was discretionary and that any employee that resigns is not entitled to bonus payments. I managed to get a payment eventually but only after I wrote to the HR Director with an implied threat to take them to court over age discrimination!

mgdavid

Fermion wrote: »

Be careful and check your companies HR policies; many large companies now do not allow you to retire but force you to resign when drawing your pension. I worked for a large multi national IT outsource/business services company and they changed their procedures in 2012 to force employees to resign. As a result I nearly lost my large annual retrospective bonus when I retired because HR claimed that it was discretionary and that any employee that resigns is not entitled to bonus payments. I managed to get a payment eventually but only after I wrote to the HR Director with an implied threat to take them to court over age discrimination!

Employers do not 'force' you to resign. It's simply that since the Government abolished the concept of a default retirement age (65 as was) the only way for the employee to end employment is to resign, at a time convenient to them.
Savvy employees will familiarise themselves with HR policies especially those around the earning and payment of bonuses, and hand in their notice at the most beneficial time.
In the context of a 40+year working life a few weeks or months either side of 65 doesn't make a huge difference.
I also worked for a large multi national IT outsource/business services company (might have been the same one) and kept jolly quiet about when I intended to stop work until after the bonuses were announced. I actually put my resignation in the day after the cutoff date for that month's payroll changes.
Me, cynical and distrusting? Not half!