uk state old age pension v emmigration

kja

my family and i are seriously considering relocating to australia and would consider applying for australian citizenship.
what would happen to the money ecrued for our uk state old age pension-can it be transfered to australia to be claimed there in later life? thank you for your help.

EdInvestor

Possibly.You would have to ask the Aussies. Your state pension already accrued can be paid to you after you retire in Australia but won't be uprated for inflation every year (unfairly IMHO).

Frozen pensions campaign


The rules are being changed so that only 30 years conts are needed to get the basic state pension in future .You can contirnue to contribute when working overseas by paying Class 2 voluntary contributions, which are a bargain at just over 2 quid a week.

Cook_County

If you have other non State pensions you MUST transfer them to Australia within 6 months of arrival to avoid serious Australian tax bills. The law there is just changing so you need to take advice on this straight away!

bridiej

Our personal pensions were only worth a couple of grand each so we have just frozen them and left them in the UK.

EdInvestor

bridiej

Consider paying voluntary class 11 NICs for the state pension, they really are an amazing bargain at just over 2 quid a week (you must have a job or be self employed overseas to get this rate).

The current BSP would pay an income of c A$11,000 a year.

Note that the Govt is changing the rule so that you will only need 30 years conts to get the full basic state pension, which would currently cost around 140,000 quid to buy on the open market, such is the extortionate price of annuities these days.

Check the overseas residents links here to get info on your situation:

https://www.thepensionservice.gov.uk

Cook_County

While generally I agree that paying voluntary Class 2 or 3 NI is a bargain it is less certain for folks in Oz because there is no indexation and even worse you might just find you get less super - you need specific advice rather than an open forum.

If bridej wants to evade Australian tax by failing to declare FIF this is potentially a problem. Take local advice.

EdInvestor

Worth checking certainly,but I would still tend to think that class 11 is so cheap as to be worth it as an insurance policy: after all many people emigrate to Oz but eventually decide to return. Re-entry can be hard because of higher UK costs, at least if you've kept up state pension entitlement it's one less expense.