Monday 20 March 2017

How Pension Benefits are calculated in the Anguilla Public Service

In order to understand how pension benefits are calculated we must first define some key terms:

Ø  Pension- a monthly sum paid in arrears at the end of month

Ø  Gratuity- a one-time lump sum payment made on the date of retirement

 In the Anguilla Public service Pension benefits are calculated using two formulas. The applicable formula depends on the employee’s start date. Person entering the service prior to January 1, 2004, have a combination of two formulas while those entering on or after the aforementioned date have a single formula.

Pension Formulas (Section 50 & 51- Pensions Act 2014)

If employment commenced before 2004:

Full Pension= N/600 x Annual Pensionable Emoluments + N/960 x Annual Pensionable Emoluments

If employment commenced on or after January 1, 2004:

N/960 x Annual Pensionable Emoluments

Rate of annual pension earned in the first formula is 2% per year (1/600 x 12 x 100) and in the second is 1.25 % (1/960 x 12 x 100).

Explanation of variable used in the above formulas

N = years of service converted to months of service

600 and 960 = fixed Actuarially determined values

Gratuity Formula (Section 58- Pensions Act 2014)

In both cases, gratuity is obtained using the following formula:

Gratuity = Full Pension x 0.25 x 12.5

Opting for gratuity means that full pension (100%) must be reduced to (75% or 0.75)

Numerical Example

An employee commenced work on January 1, 1985 and retires on December 31, 2014. The employees has a total of 30 years of service. On the employee’s sixtieth birthday, an option to receive a gratuity and a reduced pension is made. At retirement the employee was receiving an annual salary of EC$80,000.00.

Years prior to 2004 = 19 or 228 months

Years after 2004 = 11 or 132 months

Full Pension 228/600 x 80,000 = EC$30,400.00

                              132/960 x 80,000 = EC$11,000.00

Total Full Pension = EC$41,400.00

This employee would have received annual pension payments of EC$41,400 or EC$3,450 per month.

 Gratuity and reduced Pension

Gratuity                               EC$41,400 x 0.25 x 12.5 = EC$129,375    

Reduced Pension                EC$41,400 x 0.75 = EC$31,050 per year or EC$2,587.50

Section 41(Pensions Act 2014)

·        Maximum Pension

The maximum that one can earn is 2/3 of annual pensionable emoluments. In the above case 2/3 x 80,000 = EC$53,333.00 per year. The above employee did not reach the maximum pension.

·        Social security Offset

If the pension received by an employee from the Public Service Pension Fund is added to that received by the Social Security Board and the total exceeds 80% of highest pensionable emoluments previously earned, the amount of pension paid by the PSPF can be reduced.

*adapted from the PSPF

1 comment:

Unknown said...

There are a number of inconsistencies in how pension is calculated. The first and most obvious is that fact is that there are three pensionable ages, that is ages at which you can retire, but only two formulae for calculating pensions. The ages are 55, 60 and 65 years, for each of those ages there should be a formula.

The other this that is wrong with the formulae which is included within the legislation and the assumptions made are as follows. The first assumption made is that an employee can earn more than two-thirds of their pensionable salary, but then you go on to say that accrue at a 2% annual rate. That is BS, since it is a contributable pension and the employee gets out of what they contribute base on an agreed formula.

The next thing that is wrong, are the divisors 600 and 960 that are used in the formulae shown. It is indicated that those numbers were determined based on the actuary, what actuary are you referring to? that is fallacious, as there were none done to determine such.

The critical information which is need is the following:
1. The minimum legal age at which a person can join the pensionable public service;
that will help to determine the devisors used in the formulae shown along with the fraction of the salary that will be used to calculate the persons pension. In the example given, it is said that an individual should not receive more than two-thirds of the pensionable salary. Therefore if 18 years is the minimum legal age at which anyone can enter the pensionable public service, the maximum number of years/(months) that person would be able to within the public service would be 37 years or(444 mths) if retiring at 55 years and 47 years or (564 mths) if retiring at 65 years. Then the divisors for the formulae in question would calculate to be 660 and 846 respectively.

The other formula where a person would retire at age sixty, the pension for the period between 1st January 2004 and their 60th birthday has to be calculated on an individual basis as the number of years/months between 1st January 2004 and their retirement will vary from individual to individua. It should be noted that this service is continuing service not starting service. the formulae provided is for starting services.