This blogpost reviews the “partial termination” rules for certain tax-qualified retirement plans and certain regulatory and statutory rules that have, to the benefit of employers, relaxed the partial termination rules in 2020 and 2021.… Continue Reading
Stung by the greatly lower take-up for the Job Support Scheme than expected, surely a surprise to no-one who had actually read it, the government has moved this week to address two of its key shortcomings – first, the JSS required there to be work enough available to justify at least a third of the … Continue Reading
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act of 2020, enacted and sent to the President for his signature on March 27, 2020, is bipartisan legislation providing more than US$2 trillion in relief for both companies and families affected by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. It includes a number of provisions designed to … Continue Reading
This Autumn brings quite a few changes for Polish employers. Not only do new pension plans called PPK (Pracownicze Plany Kapitałowe) became a reality for the biggest Polish employers in the fourth quarter of 2019, but the Labour Code and Code of Civil Procedure see changes too. Some of them result in a need to … Continue Reading
In a previous blog [here] I mentioned to you that the social partners – bar one – had come to an agreement on employment conditions for 2019 and 2020. This agreement was then to be further implemented by social partners at an industry level.… Continue Reading
We have partnered with LCP to hold a breakfast briefing for Japanese companies operating in the UK, to help them understand and fulfil their pensions obligations. The briefing will take place on Wednesday 10 May 2017 at LCP’s offices in London, from 8:30 – 10 a.m. This event will be of interest to Japanese nationals … Continue Reading
The US Department of Labor has announced a proposed extension of the applicability dates of the fiduciary rule from April 10 to June 9, 2017 (read our prior blog post here) The proposal, issued March 1, comes in response to a directive from President Donald Trump to review the rule. The proposed extension is intended … Continue Reading
On Wednesday, February 9, a Texas federal judge upheld the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) controversial fiduciary rule for retirement investment advisers — just hours after the agency had asked to stay the case in light of President Donald Trump’s directive to it on February 3rd to conduct an “economic and legal analysis” of the … Continue Reading
Within the detail of the Autumn Statement yesterday, George Osborne said measures would be taken to prevent, “payments of benefits in lieu of salary”. HM Treasury also said that tax relief would be prevented on reimbursed business expenses where they are paid in conjunction with a salary sacrifice scheme. Not unusually, it is unclear at … Continue Reading
The last few years have presented numerous challenges for sponsors and trustees of UK pension plans – from ever growing deficits in defined benefit (DB) arrangements to the significant compliance challenges of auto-enrolment – there has been much to frown about. Could 2014 be different? In a series of blog posts we will highlight the … Continue Reading
The rules and regulations which affect your UK business are many and varied. Compliance is key to keeping safe the reputation of both the company and management and avoiding potentially significant criminal and civil penalties. Squire Sanders’ experts will present a range of topics which Japanese Managers need to be aware of in order to … Continue Reading
As everyone is looking for signs of economic recovery, the Coalition to laud it and Labour to decry it as fragile, the mass of employment data emerging is coming under increasing scrutiny in the press. For example, now that the Bank of England has decided to link monetary policy to the unemployment rate, there is … Continue Reading
If you’ve been keeping up with my pensions auto-enrolment posts over the last few weeks you will now officially be able to call yourself an expert on the subject*. In honour of this, I’ve put together a short quiz based on some interesting auto-enrolment facts and figures you might not be aware of. The answers … Continue Reading
The obligation to enrol employees into a ‘qualifying scheme’ applies (unless an exception applies) to employers with one worker as much as it does to those with 200,000. Thankfully, the Government has realised that it would be difficult for a very small company to offer the same pension arrangement as a multinational corporation. Consequently, a … Continue Reading
Here’s a puzzle: so you’ve pulled some strings and booked Dolly Parton to come and perform in a one month tour of your UK offices over the Christmas period. Does this mean you’d have to auto-enrol Dolly in your pension scheme? Employers’ auto-enrolment obligations apply to ‘workers’. That means anyone with a contract of employment … Continue Reading
In not quite breaking news: on October 2012 a long-heralded employer duty was introduced into UK law, under which employers must automatically enroll workers into suitable pension plans and pay contributions into those plans. Though at the time placing one’s head firmly in the sand might have been very tempting, the new law is now … Continue Reading
