Pensions Transfers from the U.K.
Both Brexit and the growth in the Irish Economy relative to the U.K. are encouraging Irish (and other) workers to come to Ireland. Consequently, Irish pension providers are seeing an increased demand for their products from these former UK residents. Harvest Financial Services are ideally placed to provide you with the advice you need. In this article we look at some of the reasons why they are moving their pensions to Ireland and the type of pension vehicle they use.
Qualifying Recognised Overseas Pension Schemes (QROPS) –
As part of the decision to come to Ireland people will consider transferring their pension savings and this draws them automatically to QROPS. So, what are QROPS and why are they beneficial?
- QROPS, are a pension transfer arrangement that is in line with both U.K. and Irish Revenue rules. They let people transfer pension entitlements from the U.K.to Ireland without tax consequences in most circumstances.
- Irish pension providers have QROP approved plans to facilitate transfers into Ireland. These plans enjoy exemptions from taxes on most profits and will usually have a tax free and a taxable component on retirement.
- Transferring to a QROPs in Ireland can bring advantages particularly post Brexit.
- Your scheme will be administered by a local provider subject to Irish pension rules, giving you convenient access to local advice.
- You remove potential currency risk by having your plan denominated in Euro.
- The U.K. has a penal ‘overseas’ transfer tax (at least 40%) which they do not apply when the transfer is made to a QROPS.
- There are detailed rules and reporting requirements for QROPS with which the pension provider must comply. For example you can not retire before age 55 unless the retirement is due to ill health.
- It is important when taking benefits from a QROPS to ensure that it does not trigger a UK tax charge, in some circumstances there may be a 25% tax for non-compliance.
- Payment of benefits on death from a UK pension scheme can be complicated for non-residents.
Transferring a pension to Ireland may not suit in every circumstance and not every UK scheme will permit it, so it is important to take advice. Harvest Financial Services are ideally placed to provide you with the advice you need. Laws and Tax rules may change in the future.
Transfer Your UK Pension to Ireland – For more information, or to arrange a meeting to discuss your UK Pension Transfer, please contact us on 01 2375500 or email us at justask@harvestfinancial.ie.
Benefits of Transferring your UK Pension to Ireland
Our 50 highly qualified staff are committed to investing their time in ongoing training and development and this has been a vital component for the continued success of Harvest in delivering a best in class advice service to our clients. This has been recognised at the Irish Pension Awards where we have been awarded Pension Advisor of the Year in 2015, 2016 & 2017. In March 2018 Harvest were awarded the Investment Broker of the Year 2018 at the LPI Awards.