Hi,
has anyone ever transferred a UK pension to Switzerland to a QROPS and had full access to the cash? I mean, having the QROPS to pay it out to a personal bank account after the 5 year holding period is over.
I know it is easy to transfer the pension from UK to a QROPS and I have done it before for around GBP 10k but it went into a pilar 2 (Saeule 2) account which I can not access until retirement, buying a house, selfemployment etc.
A QROPS has no obligation to report cash withdrawals to HMRC once the member (me) has been lived outside the UK for a minimum of full 5 tax years, in my case by April 6th 2012 and has no intention of returning to the UK. HMRC only allows transfers to QROPS, otherwise there will be a fine of up to 55% of the value.
So does anyone know a QROPS that can put the funds into a non pilar 2 account to have access to the cash?
I am aware of the QROPS list on the HMRC website, most of them being Pensionskassen or Stiftungen, which is always pilar 2 and blocked.
I am looking for an alternative which can pay out the funds once the 5 years are over.
Looking forward to your answers.

Either you've been targeted by a cold-calling broker or you are a cold-calling broker and will shortly be replying in a different guise to your own question.

Hi, I can assure you I am not. I just read a lot about it on the HMRC website and on the internet in general.
I worked in the UK from 2001 until 2006 for 2 different companies.
2nd job was for 3.5 years which is the pension I am trying to transfer now. The pension of GBP 10k which I transferred already was with another company where I stayed 1.5 years.
I studied the HMRC website and all of their FAQs and I can not see it being wrong transferring my pension to a QROPS after 5 years and not getting fined.
So I am not talking about a huge amount here. I just do not want to transfer it to a pilar 2 but have access to the cash instead.

I've been out of the UK for over 5 years and am interested in this also. Please make sure you update this thread if you get anywhere with it.
Like you say, in CH they are all pilar2 schemes.
thanks.

To transfer to a Qrops you dont need to be out of the UK 5 years you only need to be out of the Uk for 5 years if you are to take the 30% tax free lump sum.

Which could be changing to 10 years come April 6th.

The only way you can access the cash is by transferring to New Zeland but there are huge costs and there is a very high risk of being fined by the HRMC which is now 72% not the 55% you quoted.

And Qrops is not for everyone i.e final slary penions, goverment or military.

@swans1984: I do not agree with your post, mind you I only did my research on transfers from UK to Switzerland.
It is a fact, that HMRC only accepts transfers from UK to Switzerland if the pension is transferred to a QROPS, regardless of the 5 year period.
You can only ever transfer to a QROPS in Switzerland, unless you want to pay the 55% penalty & tax.
HMRC also says on their FAQ that a QROPS has no obligation to report any transfer out of the QROPS. So I could transfer it to any pilar 2 account after the 5 years. Transferring it to another pilar 2 account within the 5 years will also be fined.
All the information is on the HMRC website, which I have studied for a couple of weeks.

Here is what I will have to do anyway:
1. Get a statement and transfer form from my UK pension (received already)
2. Have the UK pension transferred to a QROPS in Switzerland
3. Wait until April 6th 2012 when my 5th full tax year outside UK is over
4a. Transfer it to any pilar 2 account or
4b. Transfer it to out of the QROPS to a bank account to have access to the cash

Again, I am not a broker and I can only recommend to everyone who is planning to transfer a UK pension to do it themselves.
It is very easy, just get the statement and transfer form from your UK pension, contact any QROPS or your employers pension scheme about the transfer and have it transferred. In my case the QROPS gave me support without chargin me and I only transferred a rather small pension of GBP 10k.

@Swans1984: I never said you have to be outside the UK for 5 years to transfer to a QROPS. You can have it transferred as soon as you leave the UK.
You will have to wait for 5 full tax years until you can get it out of the QROPS you transferred it to, otherwise you will be fined.

Also you need to be 55 years old or over to get your hands on the money and then you can only get 30% of the pension pot tax free.

The way you expalined it sounds strange, as for 10k there it will not be worth transferring due to the set up costs and the management fees of teh trustee.

Surely you can not do this?
I thought Swiss pension rules apply if you have transferred into a Swiss pension?

I thought the same sounds very strange to me, its the same really as cashing in the New Zealand way,
As legally you can only get a maximum of 30%.

Apart from simplifying your admin, ie you've moved to Australia, you want your pension in Australia, the only other benefit I can see is that you are not forced to buy an annuity.

However the annuity rules are also being looked at in the UK, so this may become moot in the next few years.

I suppose IHT planning also.

To clarify a few points here:

You can transfer to a QROPS at any time. You do not even have to leave the UK to transfer the pension to a provider based in another country.

If you choose to transfer to a non QROPS approved scheme you will incur a charge. namely 40% tax plus a surcharge of 15% if the HMRC choose to enforce it. The recieving scheme can also incur a charge of up to 40% again based upon the discretion of the HMRC.

In terms of withdrawal, my knowledge in Switzerland is that the only QROPS approved pensions are Pillar 2, given the Swiss mentality about the need to provide for the future I do not believe they would allow you to cash the pension in until the legislated retirement age. What they would allow you to do is transfer it to a non QROPS approved scheme in another jurisdiction which if chosen correctly may let you withdraw the fund in cash (where these funds are I do not know. They will also allow you to either withdraw or pledge the pension for the purchase of a primary residence, however the amount withdrawn must be made up before any additional pension can be purchased. Now, aslong as any of these options (excluding the pledging as this is not a withdrawal) are completed once you have been non resident in the UK for at least 5 full tax years +1 day then the action is non reportable to the HMRC. If completed within less than 5 full tax years +1 day then it is reportable and the same taxes/charges are applicable as if you had transferred to a non QROPS approved scheme.

This has nothing to do with the age of the account holder

The charges are only determined by the period of time you have been non resident in the UK for tax purposes, it has nothing to do with when you transfer the money.

Similarly it has nothing to do with any tax free lump sum as this is only paid as retirement.

As for the set up and management costs, transfer is effectively free if you do it yourself. All pension funds are chargeable by the fund holders in some form.

Finally, just because you have final salary/civil service pension does not mean you should not consider a transfer. The transfer value of either of these may be significantly higher that the transfer from a defined contribution scheme. This is based upon the fact the liability for the scheme is what determines the transfer value, not the actual amount paid to the fund. What I would say here is that personally I would not transfer a final salary scheme unless I felt the that a property purchase in Switzerland would yield greater results than my current final salary pension fund.

Edited to include. Withdrawals in Switzerland can also be made for the purpose of going self emplyed, however the same charging struct applies if the criteria are not met.

Final point. In summary, you effectively have to comply with british pension legislation for the first 5 full tax years + 1 day. Failing to do this will incur the charges. As long as you wait this minimum period what you do with your pension (obviously subject to the pension rules in the new jurisdiction) after that becomes non reportable to the HMRC

The 30% tax free lump sum can be taken anytime after the age of 55, not only on retirement.

Set up costs are charged even if you do its yourself.

And a Qrop can not be done if you still plan to live in the UK, you can do it upto 12 moths before leaving the UK.

A final Salary and Civil Service pension normally have benefits which are better than Qrops can offer, if an Adviser advises someone to transfer one of these they are only after the commission not looking after the needs of the client.

Qrops is not for every a recent survey showed of Qrops transferred 38% was mis sold

AK,

You are missing some points here. They are:

Tax free lump sum at 55 is effectively early retirement as decreed by legislation. you can defer the annuity but effectively you are retiring early for which all schemes will have a draw down on benfits based upon the number of years the retirement age has been brought forward. Currently the 55 year of age rule is the minimum retirement age allowed by UK pensions legislation.

Set up costs are not always charged if you already have the pension scheme in existence and costs to set up a new scheme can be minimal (admittedly set up costs if managed by some onle else can be high, I have heard of fees up to 12% of the fund value as a start up fees, but this is totally unecessary).

You can transfer you pension offshore under certain conditions irrespective of your plans to leave the UK, however it must be to a scheme approved by the HMRC for transfer purposes (notably QROPS). However, even if you transfer it offshore you still have to comply with UK pension legislation as you have not met the 5 full tax years +1 of non residency for tax purposes.

As for defined benefit/civil service pensions, yes I agree they are good, however if my fund has a liability of £250,000 based upon my defined benefit (it will grow depending on the scheme, normally at RPI up to a max of 12% in any one year, but of course dependant upon the scheme rules) and therefore my transfer value is £250,000 then as long as what ever I choose to use that money for, has a yield (post tax) above the RPI then I win, and the transfer is worth making. As an example I invest £250,000 with a guaranteed yield of 25% per annum then it is better to transfer than to leave it in the pension asthe pension will increase at a maximum of 12 % pa. The problem here is that no yield can be guaranteed and therefore it is often not advised to transfer a defined benefit or average income pension. No one here is suggesting a QROPS pension will out perform either of these pension types.

Nobody said a QROPS was the golden goose but for some it works, even if the long term investment return is not as good but you get to buy a house here using the funds that can be right for some people. Its not always about how much money you make at the end, it's what suits you now. However, I think more people should think carefully about using their pension with a short term view as the idea of pensions is to support you later in life once your income has invariably dried up.

What are you smoking using an example of 25% guaranteed yield!

Fatmanfilms,

You obviously gave up reading the post. The next statement was:

I was just trying to say that if you had an investment offer (although very unlikely) that had the potential to out grow the RPI even if short term then it may be worth considering.

I also made these statements:

The point is is that if you can afford to cash your pensions in now for a short term gain and then not suffer in the future this can be right as an individual. Personally I have considered it as I know I will have an income from another source later in life and will probably not have to rely on my final salary pension scheme. Everybodies situation is different, just saying you can not make blanket statements.

PS. I like the sarcasm

Yield can be guaranteed by buying something like 2.5% consolidated stock, my uncle did this 30 years ago paying under 20% of par value so his yield to cost has remained 12.5%

I think many people are sold QROPS transfers on the whole tax benefits side of things, or the lump sum/withdraw your money after 5 years, but the evidence is not stacking up.

I just do not see the tax benefits. If I have a pension in the UK and transfer it to say Guernsey, are my payments into it from either UK or Switzerland then tax deductible or is it a paid up policy then?
In the UK the dividends off the shares held in the pension are taxed, otherwise no tax is levied.
What are these tax advantages of having the pension held in Guernsey?

When I start to draw the pension, it must/should be declared where ever I am resident, so unless the pension is paid into say a Guernsey bank account and I use a debit card 'long range' for my day to day living etc and not declare it/hope not to get caught, how is getting my pension any more tax efficient if it's held offshore rather than say in the UK?

Though I can certainly see why someone would move their pension to CH to use as a deposit on a house, or move it to Oz if they live there, the whole offshore side of things, which most of the online advertising seems to be pushing, sounds very dubious.

Generally the cost of administration of a pension scheme vastly exceeds any possible tax savings. I think additional contributions should be avoided. Complicated pension arrangements are even more expensive.

When I was 25 I took out a UK personal pension which I could take from age 50, however the law has recently changed. I will not be able to take the pension at 50 but must wait till 55, the whole thing is a con, especially if the rules can be changed after the event.

A PEP now called an ISA in the UK would have produced better returns with greater flexability.

KB, this is pretty much what I was looking for.
I will reach my retirement age in about 20 years and I am only talking about a relatively small pension I am going to transfer.
My 5th full UK tax year will be over in 3 months as I left the UK in Summer 2006, so I will continue to look for a QROPS in Switzerland that does not book the receiveing transfer into a pilar 2 so I could have access to the cash.
I will probably wait until mid April to have it transferred, by then the QROPS will not have to report it.
If this does not work I would still transfer it to a QROPS in Switzerland and have it transferred to my employers pension (non QROPS) after April 2012.

I already transferred a small pension of about GBP 10k a couple of years ago into a pilar 2 QROPS, this had to be done there and then as I would have lost it if not transferred on time.
There were no fees or taxes charged on this and from April 6th I could move this to my employers pension fund.