Terms & Conditions

[barbara884]

[color=darkred:f52666da70]Can anyone help? 😕

I have an employed customer who is making contributions to an employers pension scheme and these have been disregarded in the normal way (50% etc…). It has now been picked up from his payslips that the customer has been making additional voluntary contributions along with his standard contribution. This would not normally be that much of an issue, however, the AVC is substantial and would entitle the customer to extra HB/CTB if it were to be disregarded in the usual manner as for standard pension contributions.

I think that reg36 errs towards allowing all pension contributions regardless whether they may be voluntary. My colleague argues that voluntary contributions shouldn’t be allowed because they are just that, voluntary. Can anyone help clarify the position?[/color:f52666da70]

[Anonymous]

The claimant’s “basic” contributions to the employer’s scheme are also voluntary – nobody forces you to sign up to a pension scheme.

[barbara884]

Thanks for your response. However, it doesn’t actually help!! I’m looking for somewhere within in the regs that clarifies whether AVC’s can be included in the assessment of net earned income.

[Anonymous]

Well, I think you answered your own question when you said that Reg 36 states that we disregard 50% of [b:4423eba6b7]any[/b:4423eba6b7] contribution to a pension scheme, and the point I was making was simply that all payments to pension schemes are essentially voluntary, so your colleague’s argument falls a bit flat.

That said, there was an earlier discussion on these boards where someone suggested you might look into the question of whether the claimant has started paying AVCs with the intention of obtaining/increasing benefit, which would then bring notional income into the reckoning.

[Author]

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