datstheone

My application was recently approved. I am over 60 and didn't need test or interview before approval, just got the letter a few days after I noticed the status had changed. I wonder if the interview is more to confirm the identity of someone about to take the test to avoid fraud during the testing process than actually checking the documents. I don't know how things will change in the current circumstances but I suspect that over 60 applications tend to end up at the back of the queue. With no movement and seeing others who had applied after me getting tests and approvals in Sydney I submitted a FOI request as my application came up to its first birthday. The information returned suggested that a couple of months after I applied someone confirmed that my application was exempt from interview/test and then nothing for 9 months. My Immi account was updated to show approved a week after I received the FOI return. Coincidence or did that wake the application up? Now just waiting for some form of ceremony to complete the process.

For me it doesn't make any real difference, and I have just renewed my RRV for 5 years anyway. But as I understand it not being a citizen has implications for some jobs and things like University fees, so if social distancing goes on for a year people impacted by this would be disadvantaged. Only difference for me is that my UK passport expires in November and I am not sure whether my visa depends on maintaining a valid passport regardless of whether or not I want to travel, if post gets disrupted and things in UK go bad then not too keen on posting off my passport for an overseas renewal, so becoming an Australian citizen and getting Australian passport covers me for that. Sadly, I do expect that you are right and nothing will happen until ceremonies can restart and then I will just have to wait my turn.

After being in Australia for 4 years on a PR 100 partner visa I submitted my citizenship application on 6/4/2019 for Sydney, I am over 60 so exempt from test (though even without really studying I got passes everytime I tried one of the on-line example tests), UK born and bred with University education so English language ability not an issue. Still showing as received in March so I sent in FOI request having seen that later applications were getting tests and approvals. The response arrived last week and showed that the last action was in June last year when it was confirmed that I was exempt from Integrity Screening, which I assume means exempt from interview and test. I have just checked my Immi account and lo and behold my application is not approved, so perhaps the FOI request did alert them to the fact that nothing had happened to a simple application for 10 months, meaning they got on with it. Now to wait for a ceremony, or any alternative that is introduced in the current situation, almost there.

The proof is needed if you have a private pension as well as state pension, as well as the 8% off the state pension you may be able to claim an additional allowance for the private pension. I suspect that this may be what you heard about and caused the confusion.

Not sure what you mean by worked example. As far as I am aware you will only need to get a UPP ruling if you opt to receive your final salary based pension, and if you are liable for Australian income tax. You just need to fill in https://www.ato.gov.au/uploadedFiles...43_01_2015.pdf which will require, with evidence from pension provider, and in relevant local currency e.g. GBP. - contributions to scheme - lump sum taken on retirement - CETV on day before lump sum taken - first year's pension amount ATO also want to know if part of the pension will continue to be paid to any partner should they survive you. Post form off to ATO and you should get ruling in a month or two. Mine took a bit longer as I made an error adding up the annual contributions supplied by pension provider, so needed to confirm that ATO maths was better than mine! For a typical UK final salary pension I think that everything is sorted at retirement and that is the only time to take any cash out of the scheme other than the on-going pension, and that this is all paid to you. This means that calculating the UPP allowance is a case of dividing your contributions by the your or your partner's (if they get continuing pension) life expectancy at the time of retirement - ATO works this out from dates of birth supplied on form. This is supplied as a local currency value, e.g. GBP which is converted to AUD using ATO exchange rate for the tax year in question and that value used as an allowance against income. In my case my total contributions were around £40000 and my wife's life expectancy was longer than mine at 30 years when I retired in 2010, so my UPP was 40000/30 which is around £1333. So for 2015-16 I was able to reduce my taxable income by $2605, saving just over what I spent getting my pension provider to retrospectively calculate my retirement CETV. If nothing changes then ruling can be used for subsequent years, converting £1333 into AUD each time. So I will then get full benefit as don't have to offset against costs of getting the CETV. If you move back to Australia after retiring and don't become an Australian tax resident until after retirement I don't think lump sum will be liable for tax in Australia. I married and moved to Australia with my Australian wife after retirement so that was just part of my existing assets. I hope this helps.

I obtained a private ruling regarding U.P.P. on my private pension from Universities Superannuation Scheme in July and got a deduction on my tax for 2015-16 I filled in the UPP form (https://www.ato.gov.au/uploadedFiles...43_01_2015.pdf) and sent it off. I didn't use an accountant as the ones I spoke to were ok with applying a U.P.P. deduction but not making a claim to get one. In order to get the ruling I needed to have details of my payments into my pension scheme. My pension company supplied me with the details of all my annual contributions which need to be added up to give the total for the form. There doesn't seem to be any allowance for inflation, just a sum of the actual contributions. I also needed the value of the pension at the time I retired. This is something called Cash Equivalent Transfer Value, CETV. Again I had to get this from my pension company, but as I have already retired they needed to get this calculated and charged a fee for this. So just about break even on the cost of this and the tax savings for this year, but as a one off no future fees. As I get the whole pension and no residual capital value the UPP is simply what I paid in divided by my wife's life expectancy at the time I retired (ATO use youngest spouse for this, in this case her). Also things are simplified by the fact that I spent my entire working life in UK University sector so have a single private pension. I guess that if someone has multiple private pensions they will need a UPP ruling on each pension. UPP is a fixed sum based on values at time of retirement, so it will not change over the years as pension goes up. It is quoted in GBP so actual allowance will depend on ATO exchange rate for any given tax year. For this year it comes out as just over 5% of pension being tax free so on my estimates I am saving around $1000 on my total tax bill. Although the ruling was requested and given for the 2015-16 tax year there is a note that says that if nothing changes in the information given it can apply for more than just that tax year. Other than having to sort out a minor error in my adding up of all my contributions the process was quite painless. However, I was fortunate to just have one pension provider who understood the information that was required by ATO and were willing to provide it, albeit requiring a fee for CETV calculation due to my already drawing my pension. As I only turned 65 in June I did not receive any UK state pension until after the end of the tax year so haven't put claiming the 8% allowance on that, but there nothing in private pension ruling about a limit on total UPP deductions that can be claimed for multiple pensions. Hope this helps and that you can get the information that ATO need to do the calculations and grant you a private ruling.

An update in case it helps anyone else. In the end I decided the best thing to do was to fill in the UPP form (https://www.ato.gov.au/uploadedFiles/Content/SPR/downloads/spr19285n16543_01_2015.pdf) and send it off to see what happened, hoping that it would get looked at by someone who understood it. This worked and I have just received a private ruling giving me an allowance that I can use in my tax returns. In order to get the ruling I needed to have details of my payments into my pension scheme. My pension company supplied me with the details of all my annual contributions which need to be added up to give the total for the form. There doesn't seem to be any allowance for inflation, just a sum of the actual contributions. I also needed the value of the pension at the time I retired. This is something called Cash Equivalent Transfer Value, CETV. Again I had to get this from my pension company, but as I have already retired they needed to get this calculated and charged a fee for this. So just about break even on the cost of this and the tax savings for this year, but as a one off no future fees. As I get the whole pension and no residual capital value the UPP is simply what I paid in divided by my wife's life expectancy at the time I retired (ATO use youngest spouse for this, in this case her). Also things are simplified by the fact that I spent my entire working life in UK University sector so have a single private pension. I guess that if someone has multiple private pensions they will need a UPP ruling on each pension. UPP is a fixed sum based on values at time of retirement, so it will not change over the years as pension goes up. It is quoted in GBP so actual allowance will depend on ATO exchange rate for any given tax year. For this year it comes out as just over 5% of pension being tax free so on my estimates I am saving around $1000 on my total tax bill. Although the ruling was requested and given for the 2015-16 tax year there is a note that says that if nothing changes in the information given it can apply for more than just that tax year. I hope that this information might be of use to anyone else with a private pension or pensions.

I am also trying to sort out information for seeing if my University pension is eligible. I think that my pension provider has now given me all the information that I need regarding my contributions and the Cash Equivalent Transfer Value at the time I retired. What I am still not sure about is whether there is any inflation allowance for contributions as I have my actual contributions for each individual year and 1975 £ not worth as much as 2010 £ when I retired and when pension was valued. Also not sure which years to put in for claim. Is it something I have to do each year, so claim for 2015-16 now and then repeat every year. Or can I get a % that I can just apply each year in the future? Now I have all the information I think I need I am wondering whether to book an appointment at ATO customer centre in Sydney to get advice there.

As I said in my earlier reply the £155.65 is the full pension but only if you were not contracted out for the full 35 years qualifying period. If you were contracted out, and hence paid less NI at that time, the £155.65 is reduced accordingly, the assumption being that this is made up from the private pension you were paying in in order to be contracted out. Under the old scheme there was some form of additional pension for those who didn't contract out. The new rules do away with concept of contracting out and additional pension so that now everyone pays the same and will get the same pension when they retire, or at least in the case of those just starting their working life who will clock up their 35 years of NI under the new rules. It will take this time for everyone to transition to the new scheme, in the meantime any contracted out period will result in a reduced pension. While not knowing your exact position I strongly suspect that the pension you will receive will be nearer the £105 a week that you were given in your forecast than the £155 which has, somewhat misleadingly, been quoted as the pension from April this year. Again as I said in my earlier response I will be getting around £124 a week when I hit 65 in June after 38 years of full-time work paying contracted out rates of NI. I suggest you get an updated forecast, though if you got it recently I guess that new rules would have been used to calculate it, even if any increase from last budget was not included.

Were you contracted out for any period that you were paying NI? If so then you will not get the full new flat rate. The changes mean that the concept of contracting out has been done away with, so everyone pays full NI and will then get full single rate state pension rather than the old system where an additional top up was paid if not contacted out. However, this will take 35 years or so to work through the system! In the meantime pensions will be between the old state pension level and the new flat rate level. No one will be worse off than under the old system but only those who have never been contracted out or not for 35 years will get the full new flat rate pension. This clarification has only just been really publicised as people turning 65 after April found it out for themselves. I only came to Australia last year after spending my full working life in UK and paying NI for more than 35 years, mostly contracted out. I turn 65 in June and have just sorted out getting a state pension from then. I have confirmation that this has been agreed and will be paid at around £124 p.w. All the information I supplied related to my working history, nothing about when I emigrated. Only thing about emigration was on the notice of award stating that pension would be frozen at its starting rate while I am living in Australia.

My situation was not quite the same as we knew that we were getting married at the time I applied for my visa and included the details of register office appointment with application. CO then asked for copy of certificate once wedding had taken place. Might have been one reason why I was granted 100 straight off. Situation might depend on how soon you get married or can have some form of formal evidence that wedding is taking place. If in the near future then get the information in to help application. If married after visa granted then I guess that would be a case of reporting any change of passport number. If you get a 100 straight off, and if you have 7 years de facto evidence you may well do so, then that is probably it, if 309 then might need to notify someone though perhaps not as relationship is continuing, leave that until submitting evidence for 100 when the time comes?

Thanks Andrew.

I am receiving a pension that I contributed to while working in UK university sector. From what I have read it is possible that I may be able to claim a UPP deduction against my Australian tax. I have downloaded the ATO form and have much of the information that it asks for, including a letter from the pension provider confirming my contributions. As I only moved to Australia a year ago yesterday I didn't need to investigate the UPP for my first tax return as my income less than the $18K personal allowance, so only now looking at the form in detail. A number of the questions are confusing me and it would appear that many accountants my know about applying UPP on a return but not about claiming for one in the first place. Has anyone any experience with making a claim. If so could you answer a few queries for me? - I have year by year details of my contributions. Do I add these up as they are to get my total contribution or is there any indexing that can be applied to match e.g. 1976 £ value to today's? If there is indexing where can I find the values? - form asks for pension paid in first year. Is that the first year from date of retirement, Australian tax year or calendar year with partial payment due to retiring mid year? - form asks for years that ruling is required for. As contributions, lump sum etc won't change is it possible to get a ruling that gets a %UPP that can just be used each year into the future? If not then I assume that I apply for a ruling for the current tax year? Anything else that I might need to be aware of in exploring if I am eligible for UPP on this pension? As it will be another 9 years before I am eligible for senior tax rate allowance any little will help! (I am aware that UK state pension has standard UPP of 8%, but I will not start receiving that until next tax year.) Thanks for any help.

From posts on this list I was expecting the 309 first, but the only email I got was the one granting the 100 straight off. So some inconsistency in how the grants are actually issued.

I was granted my PR partner visa straight off. My wife and I married after making the application, but including the notification of the date of marriage with the application then uploading the marriage certificate once we were married. Prior to the marriage we had been together in serious relationship for 4 years but never actually lived together in the way that the de facto rules are normally applied. That is we didn't set up a household in shared names etc. Our situation was that I retired in 2010 and my wife was being a bit nomadic using income from renting out her house to travel, spending time with me and visiting her family in her home country of Switzerland, and also spending part of the year back in Australia where I joined her several times. We shared living costs but I paid for everything in £ and she paid for everything in $/€/CHF, keeping a tally of expenditure to make sure things evened out. So while we spent the majority of the 4 or 5 years before marriage in a full and continuing relationship our first full setting up home together has been here in Australia back in my wife's house. This is something we decided that we wanted to commit to and our getting married was part of that commitment. All this was explained in application along with emails and photos to support that we had been seen as a couple in UK, Switzerland and Australia, and outlining how we had built our relationship in multiple countries. Every situation is different, and I wonder if 100 would have been granted straight off if I had not been seen to be self-supporting via my occupational pension, but my experience shows that with the right evidence that the relationship is deep and continuing but doesn't tick the normal boxes then it can still lead straight to PR. I also wonder if there is an element of money saving on Immigrations part by allowing genuine strong relationships to go straight to PR, no extra fee for second stage but requires them to process the second stage application and evidence of those on provisional visas.