The Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes (General Levy) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2005

The general levy

2.—(1) The trustees of each registrable occupational pension scheme are liable to pay a levy to the Department for the purpose of meeting the expenditure referred to in section 170(1) of the Act, except for expenditure of the Regulatory Authority in connection with its functions in relation to schemes within paragraph (2).

(2) The trustees of each registrable personal pension scheme are liable to pay a levy to the Department for the purpose of meeting the expenditure referred to in section 170(1) of the Act, except for expenditure of the Regulatory Authority in connection with its functions in relation to schemes within paragraph (1).

(3) Subject to paragraph (4), the general levy is payable in respect of each financial year.

(4) No levy is payable under paragraph (1) or (2) in relation to a scheme in respect of the financial year beginning with 1st April 2005 if the scheme became a registrable scheme (within the meaning of regulation 1(2) of the 1997 Regulations (1)) in the financial year beginning with 1st April 2004.

(5) The general levy payable in respect of the financial year in which the scheme in relation to which the levy is payable becomes registrable is reduced to the appropriate fraction of the amount that would be payable if the scheme were registrable for the whole of the financial year.

(6) In paragraph (5) “the appropriate fraction” means the fraction the numerator of which is the number of days in the financial year when the scheme is a registrable scheme, and the denominator of which is 365 or, if the financial year ends in a leap year, 366.

(7) Until the coming into operation of Article 216(3) of the Order (categories of pension schemes) –

(a) paragraph (1) applies as if after “occupational pension scheme” there were inserted “(other than one which is approved under section 591(2)(h) of the Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988)(2)”, and

(b) paragraph (2) applies as if after “personal pension scheme” there were inserted “and every occupational pension scheme approved under section 591(2)(h) of the Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988”.

(1)

The definition of “registrable scheme” was amended by regulation 2 of S.R. 1998 No. 85

(2)

1988 c. 1