The General Wage Tax Knowledge Group has taken a position on the question of whether there is (taxed) wages if the employer bears the costs of (supplementary) personal pension advice.
Cause
With the entry into force of the Future Pensions Act (Wtp) on 1 July 2023, pension providers are obliged under Article 48a of the Pension Act (PW) to guide participants in their pension choices. This article reads as follows:
“Choice guidance
The pension provider adequately guides the participant, former participant, former partner or pensioner in making a choice within the pension agreement, ensures the design of the choice environment and thus enables the participant, former participant, former partner or pensioner to to make an appropriate choice.”
The Explanatory Memorandum states that the mandatory guidance applies to the choice that the employee must make within the pension scheme of the pension provider and not to multiple schemes of one or more pension providers (Parliamentary Papers II 2021/22, 36067, no. 3
Answer
The answer is: Yes, the benefit, provision and causality requirements have been met. A further consideration of this can be found in the position published by the Tax Authorities.