Overseas Pension

jhalsall

Whilst working overseas in the UAE from 2000 to 2011 my company set up an 'overseas' pension scheme administered in Jersey. The company (local to UAE) and I contributed to my pension fund. I stopped contributing when I left the country and moved to China.
I continued to be Tax non-resident until 2022 when i started a job in the UK and I am now on PAYE. 
I now have to encash this Pension as i am the sole member of the fund and the company who is the trustee will not pay the management fees.
I understand that any benefits up to 2017 from Overseas Pension funds are not subject to Tax. Is this correct?

Bostonerimus1

Take a look at the UK/Jersey tax treaty. Under the usual rubric of these treaties the income taken from the pension will be taxed wherever you are tax resident. There might be exceptions for government pensions and some treaties recognize tax free status in both countries. I suggest you start with the presumption that the UK will tax your pension and get some professional advice.

BridgetTheCat

jhalsall said:

I understand that any benefits up to 2017 from Overseas Pension funds are not subject to Tax. Is this correct?

Where did you hear that? Source? Because I don’t think it’s correct.

Gary1984

You need a specialist advisor. 

Marcon

jhalsall said:

Whilst working overseas in the UAE from 2000 to 2011 my company set up an 'overseas' pension scheme administered in Jersey. The company (local to UAE) and I contributed to my pension fund. I stopped contributing when I left the country and moved to China.
I continued to be Tax non-resident until 2022 when i started a job in the UK and I am now on PAYE. 
I now have to encash this Pension as i am the sole member of the fund and the company who is the trustee will not pay the management fees.
I understand that any benefits up to 2017 from Overseas Pension funds are not subject to Tax. Is this correct?

As a general statement, no. I wonder where that belief came from - someone qualified to advise on the particular overseas scheme in question?

There were changes in the tax situation from April 2017: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pension-tax-for-overseas-pensions-additional-information/pension-tax-for-overseas-pensions-additional-information 

You need advice relating to your particular scheme.

jhalsall

Thanks all for the comments, I will be taking specialist advice. One or two have questioned where I made the 'assumption'.
This is taken from HMRC's website

If before 6 April 2017 a member accrued rights specifically to be paid as a lump sum then, to the extent that the lump sum is referable to those pre-6 April 2017 rights, the lump sum will not be taxable. In this context where the member had the choice to be paid pension rights as either a pension and/or a lump sum this is not a specific provision for a lump sum.

Bostonerimus1

jhalsall said:

Thanks all for the comments, I will be taking specialist advice. One or two have questioned where I made the 'assumption'.
This is taken from HMRC's website

If before 6 April 2017 a member accrued rights specifically to be paid as a lump sum then, to the extent that the lump sum is referable to those pre-6 April 2017 rights, the lump sum will not be taxable. In this context where the member had the choice to be paid pension rights as either a pension and/or a lump sum this is not a specific provision for a lump sum.

What is the context for this quote? "Lump sum" has a specific meaning for HMRC which might not apply to your oversea's pension. Also you need to know the exact rules of your pension and status ie QROPS etc.

Dazed_and_C0nfused

Bostonerimus1 said:

jhalsall said:

Thanks all for the comments, I will be taking specialist advice. One or two have questioned where I made the 'assumption'.
This is taken from HMRC's website

If before 6 April 2017 a member accrued rights specifically to be paid as a lump sum then, to the extent that the lump sum is referable to those pre-6 April 2017 rights, the lump sum will not be taxable. In this context where the member had the choice to be paid pension rights as either a pension and/or a lump sum this is not a specific provision for a lump sum.

What is the context for this quote? "Lump sum" has a specific meaning for HMRC which might not apply to your oversea's pension. 

There is more detail in HMRC's manuals and there is also the legislation.

https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/employment-income-manual/eim75550

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2017/10/schedule/3/part/3/crossheading/lump-sums-under-other-foreign-schemes

1957DfurdPensionist

jhalsall said:

I now have to encash this Pension as i am the sole member of the fund and the company who is the trustee will not pay the management fees.

If it is of any assistance, a few years ago, I had a bit of a spat with a major UK insurance provider, and the successor to my original employer, when they wanted me to cash out, or transfer out of a Group Scheme as "everyone else has done so or retired" and the new owners wished to rationalise their pension schemes.
 
Long story short, I had reason to believe that I was not, at that time, the last man standing in the scheme, and that in closing it, there were likely surplus funds that could be distributed / reattributed at the whim of the successor trustees.  Because I smelled a rat, I refused, and their solution, after some months in cohorts with the provider was to withdraw whatever of their employer, or any preferred not-yet retired member interests did remain, and then to make me the sole trustee.  The insurance company provider remained, although a subject access request later revealed emails which justifies my use of that phrase "in cohorts with" above. Even more questionably, during the main part of the debacle and formulation of a solution by tech gurus at the insurance company, my contact address details were first redirected internally to the tech guru, and later somehow deliberately removed from the plan records, leading to me not receiving annual statements, updates to funds and the like, and then a computer produced automatic standard "We have lost contact with the planholder" letter turning up at my unchanged address two or three years later!

Of course this may in no way reflect the case in your own situation, but irrespective of their and your geographical location, no Pension trustees should ever be allowed to roll over quite so easily at the dint of questionable motives by unmotivated parties who have taken over sponsoring employers (and/or their liabilities to past employees which they wish to shed).

Just my two-pennorth ...

DRS1

I think the word you were looking for is cahoots not cohorts.

1957DfurdPensionist

DRS1 said:

I think the word you were looking for is cahoots not cohorts.

I think the word I was looking for, I found.  I passed 'Use of English' at age15 well over 50 years ago, as did you I assume? So you know pretty well what I was alluding to without having stated definitively that anyone was less than honest.  Would you have preferred it if I had done so?

The difference between us perhaps is that I realise that the English language not only evolves, with meanings diverging constantly and sometimes quite rapidly, but also, due to its multiple etymological roots, meanings of similarly looking words with apparent wholly different geographical origin can sometimes start to (re-)converge. So such words can be employed as alternates to achieve nuance without resorting to overt declaration of the "correct" alternate, and without losing intent. You choose to highlight "in cohorts with" as mistaken communication, but what is a cohort and what is a cahoot?  You might say one is a group of like minds or of like characteristics or of like environmental experience, and the other perhaps a secret tent of dishonest intent? On that basis, you might question why a bank would ever call itself Cahoot unless it wished to declare itself dishonest? Food for thought?

In the meantime, what's your contribution to the thread topic?