To ask if Anyone with any kind of business knowledge has any theories?

[VolcanionSteamArtillery]

ExH has been on a reasonably high salary for 4 years now. Ive just been advised by CMS he's now taken a drop of salary of approx 2/3!!! My instinct was hes gone a committed fraud again and lost his job but he's still working for the same company just in a different role. Anyone any theories?

Whacking pension contributions, maybe a combination of things...

Thank you. Yes thats old trick of his, i thought CMS was meant to be gross. Im abit out if practice of dealing with them. Ill ask them to check.

I work for a big firm

The only people I know that would have done this were people that were close to retirement and either came back in an admin role because they didnt want to retire but didnt want the job, or more commonly dropped days so went part time. I suppose it's possible that there was a restructure and people had to reapply for roles but in reality that's to make people leave not to drop them down, most people wouldn't accept this and would prefer to get a job elsewhere.

It is possible that if he hadn't saved for a pension and there is a big hole there he could be putting a lot into his pension but people only do that if they are retiring in a year or so normally

Unlikely to be shares, unless he is very high up, most companies have maximum for normal employees I thought plus it's not exactly a stable strategy for saving as it makes you very vulnerable having all your shares in one company.

I'd be calling bullshit but not sure how you investigate.

I've seen this happen often, especially for director level employees of large nationals and multi-nationals; most often it is about becoming a contractor via a limited company. Have you checked his name on Companies House?

I'm not familiar with CSA rules re gross vs net, but I'm thinking if it was done via salary sacrifice then it would change his gross salary showing to HMRC.

Oh bum. Yes that sounds likely. We think it was his old trick before they called down inland revenue records had his dad as share holder. He has a bulk standard name (think john smith) so finding him will be a challenge

Could he have moved into a commission based role? If he’s moved into sales he would have a lower base salary and potential higher OTE (on target earnings, which is basically commission). I made this change once and went to about 50% of previous salary and was then paid commission every quarter.

Oh! Thats feasible. That would show up on tax returns eventually presumably.

He hasnt registered a new company at companies house and neither has his wife. Bank is showing as having a charge at the old companies registered address. I cant find the dad. At the moment its looking completely out of character but surprisingly legit

No, this is really dodgy.
No one takes a much lower wage.

Of course they do - it happens all the time. People often take lower-paid roles for flexibility, more family time, health reasons, wanting to wind back their working life, to go part-time. It's extremely common.

I don't think it's what's happened here, however!