Offshore Your Pension Pot, Reduce Tax
What is it about GREAT Britain – everyone wants to be successful, successful people are looked up to, but they are envied too and when they clearly have made a mint from their success they are often disliked and hounded and made to feel like outcasts. What a marvellous country…so glad there are no restrictions on leaving it!
Why the tirade? Well, it seems that the rise in the numbers of Brits retiring abroad has in part led to the government making it easier to offshore a pension pot and avoid tax in the UK. At the moment it is mainly those with substantial pension pots who are investing their retirement savings offshore, and so they are being tarred with the ‘you’re successful, we hate you’ GREAT British brush. But with a massive rise in the numbers of pensioners likely to be moving abroad by 2050, soon far more Brits could be hounded in their retirement!
If you’re facing retirement, you have a healthy pension pot and you’re thinking about moving abroad to enjoy better weather, better culture, a more supportive government and less crime perhaps, we couldn’t be happier for you. And what’s more, we have some good news for you too. The British government introduced a brand new type of pension back in 2006 and it is tax advantageous and attractive to many who are thinking of living abroad in retirement.
Before we go any further we have to just mention that this site does not give financial advice, any information contained herein is for information purposes only, to determine what you should do with your pension pot or for any other fiscal queries you may have, seek qualified financial advice!
Okay, so, this new pension is called a QROPS which stands for qualifying recognised overseas pension scheme and in a nutshell, for those who are retiring abroad it can mean that they escape taxation altogether depending on how they make used of the QROPS and where they retire to.
What is upsetting some mealy mouthed types in the UK is that those who have invested into pensions in the UK will have received tax relief on their contributions – well now that some are able to offshore their pension and abide by the qualification rules for the scheme before taking their entire pension income and/or lump sum tax free, there are some such as Lord Oakeshott, Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman who is allegedly actively complaining that this is just ‘so unfair’ to the rest of us stuck behind in the UK and having to pay into HMRC’s pot. To find out more about how you could benefit, a great site that is definitely worth reading, and make sure you download their free guide is www.qropsguide.com
HMRC are being quite good about it all though, all they want to ensure is that QROPS set up abroad are qualifying and abide by the government’s qualification rules. So, we would say to the moaning minnies who dislike others’ successes and triumphs, who complain when others put in more effort, work harder, save harder and seek better financial advice and find loopholes or advantages to exploit, that the option is actually potentially open to them too! If you can’t beat them, join them!
