Hi there

Hoping to move to Brisbane in Sept this year and was wondering if there is any tax to pay when moving pension funds. I have one frozen personal pension and one active company pension to transfer in the future.

Any help our advise would be very welcomed.

Regards

Mick

Hi Mickroo

There have been some major changes in transferring pensions to Australia which come into place from 6 April 2006.

In short, you could potentially have 40%+ deducted from your fund in taxes and charges if your pension is not transferred to a HM Revenue & Customs qualifying, recognised and approved pension fund in Australia.

If you need any further information on this let me know

Thanks

Shell

Hello Mick.

Yes, there could be ... depends on timing, monies involved, etc.

Can you send me your email address, or complete the details here (with a suitable comment - eg please send me details of how you can advise):
http://www.collettandco.com/contact.cfm

Best regards.

Neil and Shell: can you expand on these changes please - they are highly relevant to my current situation.

Thanks

In broad terms, it seems that if you effect a pension transfer overseas after "A" Day the UK fund is required to withhold tax at 40% from the sum transferred if the fund that is receiving the monies is not properly recognised by the UK Revenue. At this stage there are no such funds in Australia (so far as I am aware), but I would expect some of the major players to be working on having qualifying superannuation funds in place fairly soon ...

Best regards.