Alliance Retiral Fund

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What is the Alliance Retiral Fund Pension Plan (ARF)

The ARF Pension Plan is a National plan for the Workers of The Christian and Missionary Alliance in Canada. Workers are employees who may work at any C&MA Church, School, Camp, or Day Care.

The purpose of the ARF Plan is to provide members with a convenient method of saving for retirement. Retirement income needs are also expected to come from several other resources such as government Old Age Security and Canada Pension Plan, and personal savings and investments including a home.

The ARF plan is registered under the Province of Alberta Employment Pension Plans Act because Alberta has the largest number of members. The ARF is referred to as a Registered Retirement Plan (RPP) with defined contributions.

Both the Employee and Employer participate in the plan. The current defined level is set at 5% for the Employee and the Employer matches equally with 5%.

The ARF is monitored regularly by the IAC (Investment Advisory Committee) to insure all fund managers meet our compliance standards.

Missionaries of the C&MA are cared for by the NMC under a specialized section of the ARF.

Employers

Provincial Booklets

It is important for all Employers to know how the ARF works and to make sure that qualified employees do not miss out on this benefit. Here you will learn what you need to know and to do.

It is important for all Employers to know how the ARF works and to make sure that qualified employees do not miss out on this benefit. Here you will learn what you need to know and to do.

It is also important that your Board be aware of the requirements for ARF. Boards are often involved with hiring a new worker.

Since ARF is always connected to payroll, your bookkeeper or treasurer must be involved.

At Your Work Location You Will Have:

  • Staff who are members the ARF plan
  • Staff who may not be members of the ARF plan
  • Staff who may be leaving

The ARF is often referred to as a “benefit” like “health benefits” are. Sometimes there is confusion with the word “benefit”. While both are benefits, they are separate with each having their own rules. For example, health benefits may have a waiting period to join.

The ARF is a National plan, it is not a District plan. Some Districts have a Health Benefits program.

Review Your Staff:

Do we have any Permanent Full-time or Permanent Part-time workers on staff who are not on the ARF plan and why?

Is your staff aware of how voluntary contributions work if they would like to participate?

Important Must-Knows:

  1. Full-Time Permanent Employees are required to join immediately as a condition of employment with the C&MA.

  2. The monthly Contribution Remittances must reach the NMC within 30 days of the end of the month in which the deductions were made. For example, deductions from an employee’s pay made in the month May must reach the NMC by June 30.

    This is a requirement under the Alberta Employment Pension Plans Act, the province where this Plan is registered. The Plan Administrator (NMC) is required under the same law to send a list of non-compliers to the government monthly.

    The reason the government is strict on this law is to protect plan members so that monthly contributions are not being held back by any employer, or the NMC. This gets members’ funds into their accounts each month for earning potential towards retirement - the whole purpose of the plan.

ADMINISTRATION OF PART-TIME EMPLOYEES AND

THE ALLIANCE RETIRAL FUND (ARF)

The purpose of this document is to:

  • Define Full and Part-Time employees and the ARF membership criteria for each. (ARF is separate from any extended health benefit the employer may offer and the membership criteria is different.)
  • Outline a process for ARF employers (including churches) to administer membership in the ARF as it relates to part-time employees so pension and legislation is satisfied. 

The Full-Time and Part-Time eligibility rules are as follows:

Full-Time Employees are required to enrol in ARF starting with their first pay. 

Full-Time employees are defined as those who, according to their Employment Agreement:

  • work 30 hours or more per week and
  • are not hired on a contract basis with a specific end date (for example, a 1- or 2-year contract)

Part-Time Employees must have the option to join ARF when provincial legislated criteria are met.  The employer is responsible to let the employee know when the employee is eligible.

Part-Time employees are defined as those who, according to their Employment Agreement,

  • work less than 30 hours per week and
  • are not hired on a contract basis with a specific end date (for example, employees hired on a 2-year contract)

Provincial legislated criteria for Part-Time employees:

  • As of July 2023, the criteria for employees in B.C, Alberta, and New Brunswick are:
  • Has been employed for 24 consecutive months and satisfied one of the following:
  • Has earned at least 35% of the YMPE

(The YMPE is the Yearly Maximum Pensionable Earnings set by the CRA each year and is $66,600 for 2023.)

  • As of July 2023, the criteria for employees in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Nova Scotia are:
  • Has been employed for 24 consecutive months and has satisfied one of the following:
  • Has earned at least 35% of the YMPE in each of the last 2 years or
  • Has worked at least 700 hours in each of the last 2 years.

The other provinces have slight variations on these themes.  Please contact Reuter Benefits for those rules at retire@reuterbenefits.com.

Once a part-time employee satisfies the criteria above, he/she must be offered membership in ARF.  However, the employer has the option to be more generous and offer membership to their Part-time employees at anytime before those rules are satisfied.  The Part-time employee is under no obligation to accept the offer at any time.  

Contract Employees cannot join ARF.  When, according to their Employment Agreement, the employee is no longer on contract and becomes:

  • Full-Time, he/she must join ARF.
  • Part-time, the criteria listed above for Part-time employees apply.

ADMINISTRATION PROCESS FOR PART-TIME EMPLOYEES:

To track part-time employees’ eligibility for membership in ARF, one can create a spreadsheet like this:

The highlighted column shows if the employee has accepted the offer of ARF membership, been offered and declined it, or when they have fulfilled the 24-month time requirement.  When they have satisfied the time requirement, check the YMPE and hours worked requirements (if needed) to see if they qualify for ARF membership.

If they qualify, let them know verbally and send them the offer on the following page, which must be completed by email.

When you receive the completed form, file it in their personal file.  If they do not complete it, file a copy of the email containing the offer in their personal file.  Now you have a record that the offer was made and when it was made.  This will protect you and the church if the employee claims at a future date that they were not made aware of ARF eligibility.

This Administrative Process is a sample of how other Alliance employers administer part-time employees and their ARF eligibility.  It is provided as an aid, not a requirement.  Feel free to adjust it to meet your payroll processing needs.

July 2023

 Offer Form

Download ARF Max Contributions per year (and voluntary) here.

Reuters letter on Voluntary Max.

Voluntary Contributions:

Employees may choose to make additional voluntary contributions, over and above the required 5%; however, these voluntary contributions are not matched by the employer.  The maximum pension plan contribution permitted under the Income Tax Act is presently 18% of T4 employment earnings in a calendar year.  Since the 5% employee and 5% employer contributions add up to 10%, the maximum amount of voluntary contributions would be an additional 8% of employment earnings per year.

ARF – Yearly T4 Boxes & Registration Number

When treasurers/administrators complete 2023 T4s, please include the ARF Pension

Plan Registration Number 0275107 in Box 50. (The ARF is a registered defined contribution pension plan.)

·         A Pension Adjustment (PA) amount is to be included in Box 52 of the T4 slip.

·         The PA calculation is simply the sum of (a) the 5% required employee ARF contributions made in 2023,  (b) the 5% matching employer contributions for 2023, and (c) any additional voluntary ARF contributions made by the employee (these are not matched by the employer). 

·         Also, for ARF the employer portion is not a taxable benefit.

·         Employee ARF contributions, including any voluntary ARF contributions, are included in Box 20.

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