reseng

Hi
I have a question for QROPS gurus here and it may not be straightforward. I have a pension fund from my last job. I am not of retirement age but I worked for two companies in UK previously, which I now have left. I have some money sitting in two deferred pension schemes, which I want to transfer to Pakistan, which is where I am from basically.
I called the pension fund and they told me they do not have any pension fund from Pakistan participating in QROPS or recognized by QROPS.
My question is whether there is another way via a third country, i.e. moving my UK pension to a second country from where I can move it to Pakistan? I know there must be a country from where I should be able to transfer it to Pakistan and the specialists would know the answer.
Really appreciate your kind response.
Cheers

bakedbean

Hi and welcome to the forum

With all respect, how do you know that is true? I am in a similar position to yourself but live in Malaysia and pretty sure I cannot get the dosh into Malaysia.

I'm not sure you'll find an answer in this section of the forum though I do know that there are various threads going re QROPs in different sections of this forum. ,would suggest you do a search on QROPs from the main index page and have a good read through.

Hope you find an answer.

Clive Davison

Hi

QROPS have to be recognised by HMRC and there are only certain countries which are allowed to administer these sorts of pension scheme - unfortunately Pakistan isn't one of them.

What you can do is simply transfer your UK pensions into a QROPS based in Malta or Gibraltar (the two most credible jurisdictions for these schemes) and simply leave them there. You pension benefits would simply continue to be paid to you in Pakistan from that country. It may well, be tax efficient for you to do this but I would recommend you took proper tax advice at the outset.

Worth noting that whatever you do you will need to continue to use at least 70% the pension fund to provide you with a retirement income - there is no way to extract all of the money. Hope that makes sense.

bakedbean

Hi Clive and welcome to the forum. Presume that means you can take 30 percent out in cash then? I suppose that is something.

Clive Davison

Yes, most QROPS will allow you to take up to 30% of the value of the pension fund as a lump sum when you commence your pension income drawdown - provided you have not already taken a lump sum from the UK pension that was transferred into the scheme.

bakedbean

That's useful to know. Thanks Clive.