Temporary workers - your pension obligations
If you’re employing temporary workers for the summer season don’t forget that they have the same rights to join your workplace pension as permanent employees. What do you need to do?
Pension auto-enrolment
Workplace pensions have been around for over a decade. Despite this, every year some employers forget that temporary employees they take on, say during the summer period, have the same rights to workplace pensions as their full-time workers. Because of this HMRC is currently running a campaign to remind employers.
Assess and advise
If you’re an employer you must assess temporary staff for their right to be enrolled in your workplace pension scheme each time you pay them, even if they only work for you for a few days.
If you don’t assess your employees for entitlement to join your workplace pension it can result in a warning from HMRC or The Pensions Regulator. This can escalate to a fine of £400 initially and then daily penalties of between £50 and £10,000.
You can avoid having to assess your employees if they will work for you for no more than three months. Do this by using the auto-enrolment postponement procedure.
Related Topics
-
HMRC writes to non-domiciled taxpayers following rule changes
HMRC has begun issuing “one-to-many” letters to individuals affected by recent changes to the tax rules for non-UK domiciled taxpayers. The letters prompt recipients to review their tax position under the new regime. What does this mean if you receive one?
-
Can officers ignore minor input tax errors?
If your business has claimed input tax on an invoice where the supplier has charged VAT incorrectly, HMRC can disallow your claim by issuing an assessment. Can the officer waive that power to achieve a common sense outcome?
-
Practical guide: Tax-efficient will planning with residential property
An individual has a significant property portfolio which provides them with their sole source of income. They want to gift shares in some property to their daughter but retain the income. Can they do this without triggering the reservation of benefit rules?

This website uses both its own and third-party cookies to analyze our services and navigation on our website in order to improve its contents (analytical purposes: measure visits and sources of web traffic). The legal basis is the consent of the user, except in the case of basic cookies, which are essential to navigate this website.