QROPS Pension Transfer - UK Tax Return Declaration?

[tloring]

I apologise that I have posted this question on another thread but only saw afterwards that this forum is specifically about Pension transfer questions.

 

My family and I migrated from UK to Australia 4 months into the UK 2011/2012 tax year and hence 1 month into the Australian 2011/2012. I worked in the UK during the UK 2011/2012 tax year (PAYE) and have worked in Australia during the Australian 2011/2012 tax year (PAYG). I am now in the process of completing my UK 2011/2012 tax return resulting in a significant number of questions. I hope that this forum's moderators will not mind that I start a number of threads with each question but I believe the thread name will be useful for other users to search for.

 

My wife and I have transferred a number of Final Salary Pension schemes from the UK into QROPS approved Super funds. The QROPDIRECT.COM website states: 'The transfer to a QROPS plan is tax free.', hence can I assume that I do not need to declare these transfers anywhere on our 2011/2012 HMRC tax return documentation?

 

Any assistance greatly appreciated.

[Andrew from Vista Financial]

Hi

 

Below is an extract taken from here http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/pensionschemes/pensions-international.pdf

 

"Transfers out of UK registered pension schemes are tested against the lifetime allowance (LTA) and any amounts transferred above your lifetime allowance are subject to a tax charge of 25%.

 

Transfers below the LTA won’t attract a tax charge on transfer as long as the overseas scheme is a ‘qualifying recognised overseas pension scheme’ (QROPS). After the transfer, other charges may also be applicable, because certain payments made out of overseas schemes containing funds which have benefited from UK tax reliefs may be liable to UK tax charges such as the annual allowance, lifetime allowance and unauthorised payment charges"

 

 

This should answer your question in terms of the transfer itself, note that the Lifetime Allowance (LTA) currently stands at 1.5Mill GBP.

 

Regards

 

Andy

 

[tloring]

Andy,

This is much appreciated. Luckily (!?!) the transfer was so far below the LTA that I don't think there is any need for me to be declaring the transfer on my UK tax return given it has gone into an QROPS approved scheme.

Thanks again.