Pension / Super tax

[Guest neil1967]

Hi

 

I believe that pension/super payments in Oz are tax-free - is that correct? If so, does that only apply to Oz pension schemes or would payments from a Uk scheme to someone tax resident in Oz also be tax-free, or would the Oz tax man regard (and tax) them as income?

 

Thanks

 

Neil

[Guest Guest31881]

They are taxable income, sorry .....

[Guest neil1967]

Thanks - is that both Oz and uk pension payments or just uk. If it is the latter, then presumably there might be benefit in transferring a uk pension into a super scheme, although I appreciate there are also disadvantages, such as not being able to move the pension out of Oz before retirement, if that should become necessary.

[Guest Guest31881]

To be honest you need a good finance adviser, transferring the pension can cost a lot of money, and with a poor exchange rate you could lose thousands. but interest rates here are better. I think you need to shop around, I am on an NHS pension from the UK and it is taxable here (No tax paid in UK) but with low income allowances I do not normally end up paying tax. Not old enough to get the retirement pension yet from the UK. But I believe that is taxed as income. I believe the Australian super payments are tax free here when paid as pension.

[Andrew from Vista Financial]

There can be many benefits to transferring a UK pension fund to Australia not just the fact that the income in retirement and over the age of 60 is tax free.

 

Of course UK final salary schemes have benefits attached to them that market linked schemes do not so doing a comparison of what the benefits/advantages of transferring are against not transferring would need to be done on a greater scale for final salary schemes than market linked schemes.

 

There are many considerations to take account of as well as the exchange rates, including weighing up what impact the potential changes announced from the Lord Hutton report to final salary schemes may have.

 

Regards

 

Andy