Salary Being Deducted but Pension Not Being Paid

LegacyUser

I currently work for a medicum sized business based in Ireland. Been working in said business for over 4 years. 1st job out of college and have enjoyed most of it until the last 18months or so where as of late everything has gone severly down hill.

In Janurary 2010 employees got their bi annual pension statement regards the PRSA. Now the current situation is that an employee pays a certain percentage of their salary into their pension account and the company matches it. That has been the situation since I joined and I have had no problem with it. However in my January statement I noticed that my company had not being transferring my pension contribution for the pervious 6months even thou they were deducting it from my salary monthly!

Was chatting with some of my collegues about the matter as a few of them had also noticed this irregularity regards their pension funds it is occuring for every employee. One person rang up the pension company and enquired why no one was notifed and this is against the law (i.e. the pensions ac - money deducted from an employees salary has to be paid withing 21days of deduction).

Since this telephone conversation the pension provider has been sending letters every months notifying employees that the money hasnt gone through. They paid the outstanding pension money in mid Janurary 2010 for the previous 6months in a lump sum but they have failed to pay into the pension fund once again every month for the last 5months.

The offical line from company is that "its an administrative error" which is a white wash and the pension provider seems to treat the company as a customer and dont want to rock the boat which is why we recon they didnt inform any of the trustees.

What can we do in this situation. Im assuming by right the pension provider should have notified the financial regulator?

Clauric

This is quite a serious issue that you have raised. Normally I would suggest that you talk to your employer, and try and sort the issue out. However, as the money involved could amount to quite a lot, I suggest that your first port of call is the Pension Ombudsman - (01) 6471650.

tenchi-fan

Your employer is legally obliged to remit the deductions within 15 or 30 days or so (sorry, not sure of the exact details!)

Also, Your employer is legally obliged to put a declaration on your payslip to say the funds have been remitted to the pension provider.

It's a very serious issue for your employer and he could be in a lot of hot water - almost worse than if he simply didn't pay you! It's something he should be sorting out immediately!

LegacyUser

tenchi-fan wrote: »

Your employer is legally obliged to remit the deductions within 15 or 30 days or so (sorry, not sure of the exact details!)

Also, Your employer is legally obliged to put a declaration on your payslip to say the funds have been remitted to the pension provider.

It's a very serious issue for your employer and he could be in a lot of hot water - almost worse than if he simply didn't pay you! It's something he should be sorting out immediately!

Thanks for the replies. A few of my collegues and I are aware that this is quiet a serious matter as it could be interpreted as fraud. We werent told by anyone from management or accounts basically had to query it ourselves when we saw a discrepancy on our bi annual statement with the PRSA provider.

Our payslips show the monthly deduction for the PRSA (I have personally checked previous payslips) but this never reached the PRSA fund. Few of us fear that its the lump sum from the PRSA is being used for operational expenditure.

3DataModem

This is very serious.

I can tell you that not remitting funds deducted (for tax, PRSI, insurance or pensions) is treated very seriously.

I would call;
> Pensions Board
> Pensions Ombundsman
> ODCE
> Revenue Commissioners (as this affects your tax and the company's tax)

And follow up with a registered letter to all four.

Your company is probably going under - time to start looking for another job.

whatnext

Pensions act 1990
Section 58A requires the employer to remit contributions without any deduction. Therefore the full amount of contributions must be remitted by the employer. Section 59(1)(a) requires that that the relevant contributions be invested by the trustees "in accordance with paragraph (b)" within 10 days. Paragraph (b) imposes the obligation on trustees to provide for "proper investment of the resources of the scheme in accordance with the rules of the scheme." The provisions contained in paragraph (b) have not been changed. Therefore, what constituted "proper investment in accordance with the rules" prior to the amendment of the Act continues to constitute such proper investment after such amendment. In summary, if the fee deduction by the trustees constituted proper investment in accordance with the rules prior to the commencement of Section 59(1)(a), it will continue to do so after.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:6KHOtdCbWPEJ:82.195.132.107/getFile.asp%3FFC_ID%3D959%26docID%3D77+%22Section+58A+requires+the+employer+to+remit+contributions%22&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ie

LegacyUser

Just to update this thread. Pension wasnt paid either for August even though once again it was deducted from our payslips. Issue has been raised several times to accounts who assured us it would have been sorted by the end of August. Time to get writing that letter I think. Cheers for the advice everyone has given.