The Occupational Pension Schemes (Contracting-out) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1996

Minimum payments to be made by employers to trustees

32.—(1) For the purposes of section 4(1) of the Act(1), the employer of an earner whose employment is contracted out by reference to a money purchase contracted-out scheme shall, subject to paragraph (2), make to the trustees of that scheme any minimum payments which fall to be made by him, other than amounts deductible by virtue of regulation 31(4) which he did not deduct, within 14 days of the end of the income tax month in which there arose the liability for Class 1 contributions in respect of the earnings to which those minimum payments relate.

(2) An employer shall for the purposes of paragraph (1) be deemed to have deducted from the last of any number of payments of emoluments which fall to be aggregated under paragraph 1(1) of Schedule 1 to the Contributions and Benefits Act the amount of minimum payments deductible from those payments which he did not deduct from the earlier payments.

(3) Subject to paragraph (4), if the employer has paid to the trustees on account of minimum payments an amount which he was not liable so to pay, the amounts which he is liable so to pay subsequently, in respect of other payments of emoluments made by him during the same tax year, shall be reduced by the amount so overpaid, so however that if there was a corresponding overdeduction from any payment of emoluments to an earner this paragraph shall only apply in so far as the employer has reimbursed the earner therefor.

(4) Paragraph (3) applies only where the overdeduction occurred by reason of an error made by the employer in good faith.

(1)

Section 4(1) was amended by Article 133(2) of the Pensions (Northern Ireland) Order 1995