Alasdair

So taking Gbye grey sky's example "So, for example your fund was worth £100,000 when you migrated and it is now valued at £160,000. So 25% (or £40,000) has grown by £15,000. Convert £15,000 to current exchange rate (say 1.80) = $27,000. So in this example $27,000 is taxable in Oz at your marginal rate even though you will have $72,000 to transfer over." one step further, if only (say) £5,000 had been paid out of the fund, then as Andrew from Vista comments, is the taxable AFE the total growth in the fund (£60,000) but limited to the amount paid, ie £5,000?

This topic seems to be the closest to my situation I've seen so far... Is anyone able to advise the tax situation in this case - My wife & I left our UK pensions in (separate) personal pensions in 1990 when we emigrated. We're not interested in moving these pensions out to Aus. More recently, we converted hers to a SIPP, and withdrew money to pay for a trip to the UK. There was no tax to pay on that (treated as income) because it was way under the relevant income tax thresholds and there's no other income to speak of. Did that trigger another tax liability based on the growth in the value of the whole fund? If so how would it be assessed? My wife hasn't worked for years and is over 55, so potentially regarded as retired. Any clarification welcomed!