Tax request after selling pension

dunstonh

The scammers often take the whole pension pot. So, £8k seems lucky in this respect!! In pension liberation scams, its often 30-50%. However, HMRC dont care, they look at the total amount liberated. Not the bit scammed out of.

jamesd

ess0two wrote: »

She's trying to find paperwork, but back of fag packet calculation was 46k pot, they took 8k to sort stuff as she's put it, leaving 38k.

Thanks. 8k from 46k is nowhere near enough for the unauthorised payments charge, that's probably just what the scammers took from her. 26k is 56.5% of 46k so the unauthorised payments charge at 55% looks about right for the original pot being 46k.

So it looks as though no tax was deducted at the time she took the money and the whole £26k really due now.

Dazed_and_confused

ess0two wrote: »

I'm posting on behalf of sister in law.


4 yrs ago against all advice she sold her pension to a company overseas for 38k.
Fast forward to now and HMRC have been in touch and want 26k in tax for the sold pension.
She's asking me if theres a way to avoid this to which I laughed...I've googled and can't find anything remotely advisable for her.
Does anyone have any info in terms of avoiding this? can she claim she was unware of the consequence etc etc,if they don't buy this will a payment plan be set-up??


Advice appreciated.

Advice.

For you - get a new sister in law

For her - just pay the 26k out of the 38k she'll have in her bank account :rotfl:

Freecall

Dazed_and_confused wrote: »

just pay the 26k out of the 38k she'll have in her bank account :rotfl:

What's with the roll on the floor laughing smilie?

This poor woman has been scammed, she is the victim of a crime.

Is there no compassion on these boards?

molerat

Freecall wrote: »

What's with the roll on the floor laughing smilie?

This poor woman has been scammed, she is the victim of a crime.

Is there no compassion on these boards?

A victim of her own stupidity more like, OP wrote

4 yrs ago against all advice

The scammers charged her a mere 17% for their services so she still received a fair chunk. I wonder if the pension company will be charged the 15% and come after that.

xylophone

I am far from laughing at what has happened - the OP's sister-in-law must be very worried indeed.

However, she does seem to have been warned repeatedly not to get involved with the "liberators" and presumably pointed in the direction of all information available even then about the tax consequences of accessing a pension before reaching pension age.

ess0two

molerat wrote: »

A victim of her own stupidity more like, OP wrote The scammers charged her a mere 17% for their services so she still received a fair chunk. I wonder if the pension company will be charged the 15% and come after that.

In terms of advice,i told her the pension would be worth far more when she retired,she didn't seek professional advice.
An acquaintance of hers told her about releasing the pension early etc.
The firm in question told her it was legal etc.


To some extent she has been had.

ess0two

Freecall wrote: »

What's with the roll on the floor laughing smilie?

This poor woman has been scammed, she is the victim of a crime.

Is there no compassion on these boards?

You need skin like a rhino on these boards, what's done is done.

dunstonh

The firm in question told her it was legal etc.

And what would you expect a scammer to say?

To some extent she has been had.

The following link is to the 2013 version of the warning leaflet she would have been sent with the transfer forms:
http://www.comet-pensions.co.uk/library/File/pension_liberation_fraud_leaflet_nov2013.pdf

jamesd

ess0two wrote: »

She's trying to find paperwork

She definitely should work on that and collecting details of just which firms or individuals did what.

The reason for this is that there is a fair chance that an independent financial adviser was involved in the transaction in some way, signing off on the transfer. If so, that IFA firm or individual may have liability for giving inappropriate advice that could result in her being placed in the position she would have been in if the advice had not been given and followed.

If an IFA was involved she should expect that the IFA will deny liability and that after a formal complaint to the IFA firm a referral to the Financial Ombudsman Service may be needed.

It's quite likely that such an IFA firm will have ceased trading and/or that the individual is now bankrupt. In that case it would be the Financial Services Compensation Scheme that would pay. Regrettably the honest IFAs would indirectly end up paying the bill for this.

HMRC won't wait for such things to be resolved so she'll have to deal with paying them first.