Auto enrolled and deferred pension

SIMMONS069

Hi, I'm 52 and have a large deffered workplace stakeholder pension pot from a previous employer. This will be my main pension pot until State Pension at 67.



I have a 'zero-hours contract' job with new employer and only once made over the £833/mth threshold for pension contributions when my April and May pay was combined (by a quirk of their admin/payroll). This triggered auto-enrolment and a pension conribution from my payslip. I fully expect my pay to drop to the normal ~£250/mth i.e. below the £833 threshold.



I was wanting to avoid this as mainly manage my deferred pension with a direct debit/one-off payments and managing the funds in the portfolio.



However, with this auto enrolment triggering a new pension, can I contribute money to my deferred pension when my salary may be below the £833/mth from my new employer pension. Any infomation on legalities, tax etc would be gratefully appreciated.



MoneySavingExpert - I couldn't see anything on the site about this sort of thing but it may be a common situation with people taking early retirement and then getting small income jobs in these 'auto-enrolment times'. Thanks.

Linton

You can contribute to whatever pensions you want as long as your (not including your employers) total gross contributions do not exceed your annual employment income in any one tax year. To make a contribution to say a stakeholder pension you will actually pay in 80% of the contribution and HMRC will add the missing 20% directly into the pension as a tax refund. You get this tax refund even though your income may have been below your tax allowance and so you did not pay any tax.


In may be impossible to contribute to an old employers pension scheme but in your case where it is a personal stakeholder pension it is probably OK. You had better check with the pension company. If you cannot contribute to an old employers scheme you can easily set up a new pension.

Albermarle

As an alternative you should normally be able to also add one off contributions to your current new auto enrolment pension. Even though it might only have a few Pounds in it ( employer will have had to contribute as well ) you should have been sent paperwork relating to it ?
It could even be that this new very small pension has lower charges than your deferred one . At least it would be worth comparing the two as an exercise.

SIMMONS069

Many thanks for the reply and information. Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you. Best Regards.