Pensions - Articles - Call for Government to consider self employed for AE

 The income support scheme would be accessible, “…from no later than June”.

 Following this positive announcement, James Jones-Tinsley, Self-Invested Technical Specialist at Barnett Waddingham, calls on the government to consider self-employed for auto-enrolment in light of Covid-19.

 Jones-Tinsley, Self-Invested Technical Specialist at Barnett Waddingham, said: “Our research into the self-employed found that most people typically hold cash deposits and a preference for saving into Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs), as opposed to a pension.”

 “This is understandable, because with an over-arching uncertainty of earnings from one month to the next, the key requirement for self-employed individuals is ease of access to cash-based reserves.

 “This real-world situation serves to explain why auto-enrolment for the self-employed should be seriously considered by the government.

 “Utilising the tax and national insurance system to allow an element of self-assessment payments to constitute tax-relievable pension contributions into a cost-effective pension scheme specifically established for the self-employed, would go some way to enabling them to build up pension savings for their eventual retirement – especially if another crisis was to occur.”