Moving abroad for good, suggestions about what to do with UK financial products

[Deleted User]

dunstonh said:

The most important thing is to get your UK financial products sorted out before you leave the UK.   The EU has refused to grant permissions for UK financial companies to offer financial services to EU residents unless they have an office in the country within the EU (or have passporting permissions within the EU from within other EU states).   Most do not.    Unfortunately, this is a punishment from the EU to the UK for leaving and is unlikely to be resolved in the short to medium term.

Thanks for the afternoon chuckle...

You don't cancel your gym membership, decline to follow the rules and still expect access to the jacuzzi when it suits.

Non-EU financial services companies based in Iceland, Norway or Lichtenstein (i.e. part of the EEA) and therefore follow the same ruleset as EU financial services companies get like for like access - The UK no longer does and therefore doesn't.

bostonerimus

The UK/Italy tax treaty should make things relatively simple for your UK pensions and protect them from taxation in both countries until you make withdrawals. I would double check on the ISA though as that is not a pension wrapper and you should find out how Italy will tax such a foreign account. If the ISA contains UK ITs or funds there might be specific Italian tax rules. You should see if  its good idea to withdraw the ISA money and other general account investments money while you are still in the UK to avoid Italian tax on it.

dunstonh

You don't cancel your gym membership, decline to follow the rules and still expect access to the jacuzzi when it suits.
Non-EU financial services companies based in Iceland, Norway or Lichtenstein (i.e. part of the EEA) and therefore follow the same ruleset as EU financial services companies get like for like access - The UK no longer does and therefore doesn't.

How do you explain countries like Brazil, Saudi, Dubai, China, Singapore, South Africa, USA etc getting various degrees of equivalence despite playing to a completely different rule book yet the UK has an identical rule book but doesn't get equivalence?

These sorts of things are not about being a member of a club but meeting standards and having agreements that help everybody.  

maxsteam

Neruda said:
Fineco: actually an Italian bank but they have a London branch that offers accounts to customers based in the UK.

Just a minor correction. Fineco are an Italian bank with an office (they call it a "hub") in London, but it's not a bank branch. They do not have a bank branch in UK. UK banking rules are strict in insisting that retail banking and investment banking operations are separate. The Fineco account that is offered to UK customers will probably be very useful to OP because it offers currency trading in the same account as a debit card and other current account features but this Fineco account is not something that any UK bank branch would be allowed to offer.

Nebulous2

dunstonh said:

You don't cancel your gym membership, decline to follow the rules and still expect access to the jacuzzi when it suits.
Non-EU financial services companies based in Iceland, Norway or Lichtenstein (i.e. part of the EEA) and therefore follow the same ruleset as EU financial services companies get like for like access - The UK no longer does and therefore doesn't.

How do you explain countries like Brazil, Saudi, Dubai, China, Singapore, South Africa, USA etc getting various degrees of equivalence despite playing to a completely different rule book yet the UK has an identical rule book but doesn't get equivalence?

These sorts of things are not about being a member of a club but meeting standards and having agreements that help everybody.  

Use of the word 'punishment' is a politically and emotionally loaded one Dunston, with a whiff of some of the excesses of the right-wing tabloids. 

This isn't an emotional issue, though emotions come into it, it is a business one. Negotiating a trade deal requires give and take. If equivalence had any value to the UK negotiators they could have asked for it. 

The EU had freedom of trade in goods, freedom of trade in services and freedom of movement.

The UK negotiators were determined to end freedom of movement, wanted freedom of trade in goods and appeared to ignore services almost completely. There was a lot of speculation about why. Much of the conversation around that centred on the City of London not wanting to be tied into common standards going forward and being able to move away from the standards currently in place. 

Adding a sop about some limited form of equivalence to an agreement with a far away country who will rarely use it costs very little. Adding it to an agreement with the UK which has possibly the most developed financial services in the world is very different. In other words the price rises the more it benefits the other party. 

The question then is what would you give? My personal view is access to the EU market in services would be given very readily if the UK agreed to match EU standards going forward. 

Alexland

Nebulous2 said:

My personal view is access to the EU market in services would be given very readily if the UK agreed to match EU standards going forward.

Passporting is based on recognising broad equivalence not one party becoming a rule-taker. That's generally how it works with other countries that the EU has granted various areas of passporting scope. There's no point pretending that this Brexit was not political and emotional for the politicians concerned. It will probably just take time for a new generation of politicians less invested in the current situation to find better answers. Time is a great healer.

bostonerimus

The OP needs to read the UK/Italy Double Taxation Treaty as that will dictate taxation. This must be done before any change in residency so that problematic UK investments can be liquidated and moved to Italy. Your pensions are probably ok to leave in place.

For NICs you will have to see what agreements are in place post Brexit as there is no Social Security Agreement between the UK and Italy. You should see if you can continue to pay UK Voluntary Class 2 NICs if you are working in Italy as they are very inexpensive and will increase your potential UK state pension until you reach the max benefit. Have a look here

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/social-security-abroad-ni38

Daliah

bostonerimus said:

For NICs you will have to see what agreements are in place post Brexit as there is no Social Security Agreement between the UK and Italy. 

The terms agreed in the Withdrawal Agreement apply to all EU citizens who were resident in the UK on 31/01/2020. See the link I posted earlier for details on how state pensions are handled.

Regardless of that agreement, however, NICs can never be transferred to, or exchanged with, any country, and nobody can get a refund for the NICs they paid.

bostonerimus

Daliah said:

bostonerimus said:

For NICs you will have to see what agreements are in place post Brexit as there is no Social Security Agreement between the UK and Italy. 

The terms agreed in the Withdrawal Agreement apply to all EU citizens who were resident in the UK on 31/01/2020. See the link I posted earlier for details on how state pensions are handled.

Regardless of that agreement, however, NICs can never be transferred to, or exchanged with, any country, and nobody can get a refund for the NICs they paid.

Agreed, the general rule is that social security payments into one system cannot be transferred to another or used to calculate a the level of benefit in another country. However, the US/UK Social Security agreement does allow contributions in one country to be used for you to qualify for a benefit in the other. Anyway as the OP was working for "10 + years" in the UK they should qualify to make Class 2 NICs and, depending on how old they are, it would be foolish not to as they are so inexpensive (I just paid 158 GBP for 2020-21 NIC).

Daliah

bostonerimus said:

Daliah said:

bostonerimus said:

For NICs you will have to see what agreements are in place post Brexit as there is no Social Security Agreement between the UK and Italy. 

The terms agreed in the Withdrawal Agreement apply to all EU citizens who were resident in the UK on 31/01/2020. See the link I posted earlier for details on how state pensions are handled.

Regardless of that agreement, however, NICs can never be transferred to, or exchanged with, any country, and nobody can get a refund for the NICs they paid.

Agreed, the general rule is that social security payments into one system cannot be transferred to another or used to calculate a the level of benefit in another country. However, the US/UK Social Security agreement does allow contributions in one country to be used for you to qualify for a benefit in the other. Anyway as the OP was working for "10 + years" in the UK they should qualify to make Class 2 NICs and, depending on how old they are, it would be foolish not to as they are so inexpensive (I just paid 158 GBP for 2020-21 NIC).

The US example is very much along the lines of how the UK/EU (and the inter-EU / inter-EEA) agreement works. UK/EU arrangements for state pensions have been the same for decades, and have - so far - survived Brexit, even for people who (unlike the OP) don't have pre-Brexit NI years.