Im surprised no-one here has said anything about them yet (or am I being blind?).

you can google it or I’ll shove a link to the Guardian here (its on most the news sites AFAICS):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/oct/27/private-pensions-compulsory-all-workers

Apparently they are suggesting that anyone that earns over the Personal Allowance figure pays into a private pension scheme, and self employed people are left to fend for themselves.

I am not really shcoked by this being proposed, however I’m umm’ing and arr’ing over my opnion of it.

I think its silly that this we have come to a point where this has to be considered, but Im not explicitly against it either.

What are peoples opnions on this?

Happy for my personal finances, against it because of the burden it places on companies/ entreprenurs (sp)

Think of France, germany etc where pension contributions are a large extra cost to consider when taking on employees

Good idea in principle, but poorly executed. Being based on banded earnings (i.e. earnings over nil rate band and below higher rate band) there is the possibility that people will be literally saving pennies into their schemes.

Additionally, it is possible that lower earners who save into this scheme will be worse off than if they had not due to the fact that the State Second Pension is means tested (currently anyway)….simply crazy.

The penalties on the employer are huge if they don’t “auto enrol” eligible employees appropriately, and if the employee is enrolled, but wishes to opt out they still have to be auto enrolled three years after their original auto enrolment date and then they can opt out again! Just further burden on employers in my opinion.

The other thing is, who is going to manage these schemes – the Government wants the annul charges to be in the region of 0.30% of fund value (on a current scheme with sensible funds being invested with a 1% charge it takes the provider 11 years before they are in profit) so take up amongst the industry is going to be a issue.

IFA’s aren’t going to advise on them unless they charge the company/individual a fee for doing so, as we aren’t going to be able to earn from them. Unfortunately, unless the employer already has a Qualifying scheme in place they are going to be left to implement these themselves which is a minefield.

Crazy thing is, we already have the mechanisms in place for this; it’s called National Insurance, problem is the government can’t be trusted to manage these funds properly hence NEST and NI will just become another tax.

IMO this is the first step in the abolition of the State Old Age Pension.