Salary sacrifice payments. Am I mistaken?

llahets

Hi, please could someone with a bit of pension knowledge advise if there's a mistake with my salary sacrifice payments? Something seems off.
My monthly wage slip shows a pre-tax salary sacrifice payment from my employer to me of £196 (on top of my salary). 
Then there are two deductions of £196, one labelled as salary sacrifice and the other as a payment to the penson provider. Therefore totalling £392.
Yet when I logged into my pension account just now I can only see monthly contributions of £280. Surely it should be a higher contribution or am I mistaken?
I'm not the smartest financially so a dumbed-down response would be appreciated. 
Thank you in advance.

Mark_d

Suppose you earn £1000 gross and are sacrificing £196, then your pay after salary sacrifice should be £804.  It appears that your payslip is correct although they have shown the calculation as 1000+196-196-196

Shouldn't the payment into your pension be £196?  Perhaps your employer are contribution to your pension on top of the salary you're sacrificing.

Marcon

llahets said:

Hi, please could someone with a bit of pension knowledge advise if there's a mistake with my salary sacrifice payments? Something seems off.
My monthly wage slip shows a pre-tax salary sacrifice payment from my employer to me of £196 (on top of my salary). 
Then there are two deductions of £196, one labelled as salary sacrifice and the other as a payment to the penson provider. Therefore totalling £392.
Yet when I logged into my pension account just now I can only see monthly contributions of £280. Surely it should be a higher contribution or am I mistaken?
I'm not the smartest financially so a dumbed-down response would be appreciated. 
Thank you in advance.

Your employer doesn't pay salary sacrifice payments to you. Your salary is reduced by the amount you have agreed to sacrifice, and your employer then pays that amount over (gross) to the pension provider. 

Are you sure there should be two deductions, one a payment by salary sacrifice and the other a personal contribution? If so, why isn't the whole lot paid by salary sacrifice, which is the more common - and much less confusing! - route, unless doing that would reduce your actual salary to below minimum wage levels?

Cobbler_tone

I'm sure every payslip is different.
Mine will show -£1329 as 'retire sav sch' which is the salary sacrifice and taken from the gross pay.
Then another line that says +£1969 'company pension' which is the total contribution inc mine and the company...and the figure that is invested in my pension each month. 

Yours suggests some is pre-tax and some from your net, which seems a bit unusual if SS is available. If it is a minimum wage thing you certainly should be aware of it!

llahets

It's all very confusing, I'm still none the wiser. Mt slip definitely shows one payment by employer then two deductions. The wage clerk is the wife of my boss hence me needing certainty before I query it!

Marcon

llahets said:

It's all very confusing, I'm still none the wiser. Mt slip definitely shows one payment by employer then two deductions. The wage clerk is the wife of my boss hence me needing certainty before I query it!

I see your problem...

Try the daffy employee approach ('really sorry, I know I'm being thick, but I'm trying to work out why my pension provider is showing contributions of £280 when I think it should be £392 - or am I just not understanding how it all works?'). I'd give her advance warning of your query so she can get the answer ready, rather than putting her on the spot - something sounds very odd! Just don't let yourself be fobbed off. You need to understand how much you are contributing and how (ie salary sacrifice or personal contribution, or possibly a combination of the two); and how much your employer is contributing (which needs to be in addition to anything you salary sacrifice - a point not always  well understood by incompetent payroll novices).

Penguin_

What figure is on the "Employer Pension" line?

ali_bear

Another source of confusion is the amount the employer saves in the Employers NI contribution (approx 11% of the sal sac amount). Often this will be passed on to you as a small top-up to your pension contribution - although I think it is up to the employer to decide on this and they could just keep it. 

Politely ask your payroll admin to explain it all to you. It is also possible they have made an error but no need to sour the relationship over it. 

llahets

Penguin_ said:

What figure is on the "Employer Pension" line?

There isn't one. I just have a salary payment and a salary sacrifice payment of 196 then under deductions along with tax and NI I have two more deductions, one to Royal London and Salary sacrifice, both at the same figure of 196.

squirrelpie

It would probably be easier for people to understand and answer if you could post a picture of your payslip, with whatever details you don't want to show blanked out.

llahets

All sorted, thanks all. The response was:

The amount paid into your pension fund is £282 per month - as seen on the statement you attached.

This is made up of:

£196.00 from yourself which is what you see on your payslip and 3% from the company £86.62 on qualifying earning - which is not shown on your payslip.