Alan Collett

Understood, but superannuation is a very important element in personal financial planning and as such it is important not to ignore it because it is difficult to get to grips with ...

Best regards.

Swerv-o

Hi Tabby,

Yes, I have too. It seems like a minefield, and I know that I always manage to make the wrong decisions with money - Wrong endowment, sold house at wrong time, transferred money just before exchange rate went ballistic... you know the stuff. I have kind of an inverse Midas touch with finance, so it would be nice to try and get this right!

Not that I'm skilled in these things (see above), but the Industry funds seem to be better than the retail ones, as they appear to charge fewer fees. Many seem to be like Mutual building societies in the uk and they pay money back to investors, not to shareholders.

Of these a couple seem to come in quite highly recommended. Check out:

CARE super
Sunsuper
AGEST super

The Sunsuper one seems to have won every award going for several years, and looks to have made pretty good returns - 14% over the last 3 years - so I'm going to check this one out a bit further.

I notice that none of the Industry funds are QROPS certified, so if you have a sum to move from the uk, then you may want to consider one of the retail funds instead. Not sure if you can move your lump sum into a non QROPS fund later on, or if you would have to give glum gordon a slice back.

Anyway, you'd probably do best to do exactly the opposite to me, that way you can't loose!

S

Alan Collett

Note that the obligation to report payments to individuals by the QROPS fund (which includes payments to other funds) remains for the five complete UK tax years after the individual has ceased to be tax resident in the UK.

After that date the obligation to report to the UK Revenue details of payments ceases.

My understanding is that if the payment is to a fund without QROPS status a tax liability (payable to the UK Revenue) arises. How collection of the payment is enforced remains a mystery ...

Best regards.

Swerv-o

OK,

Because I have nothing better to do, I have sitten down and written a spreadsheet that compares the fees and charges for some super products.

I have chosen 5 of the ones suggested by the site that Alan recommended. I have tried to calculate fees for 1 year, and then for 3 years.

Now, it is a bit basic, and it doesn't take into account the compilation of interest or growth on the account, so just assume that the growth is 0% for three years. It also assumes that the % based charges are applied to the whole account balance, and not just to the growth.

I have included a thingy at the top so that you can enter your own wages and see how the charges will effect you personally. Let me know if you use it, and if you find I've fouled it up too.

S

DISCLAIMER
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I am not an authority on personal finance, and I am not recommending that anybody use this to make any kind of decison with. I am just tinkering about with it, and if you find it helpful, then feel free to use it for illustration purposes. If you can improve it, then feel free to alter it, likewise if you find any mistakes, then let me know. It is not intended as an authoritative guide.

seaangel

Just wanted to say thanks for all your investigating on this subject. Like has been mentioned before, it is an absolute headache so thanks for all your effort!

Paul and Chloe

Hi...

I work for one of the large financial platforms that offers a Super products in its portfolio, however the general view from within the organisation is that we can not compete with industry funds for "retail" business and tend to focus more on corporate super clients. I have used the following website:

http://www.superratings.com.au/

It gives an "independent" view of various super funds on offer and also has an awards section. The Virgin fund is in the list of award winners and is actually a fairly good deal as the 1% does include all fees (even the fees paid to the fund managers that a lot of other Super funds charge in addition to the admin fees).

Regards

Paul

Freespeech

HMRC will not divulge the methods but its easy to see what they could do if you have a UK state pension or receive pensions or interest gross (as you would if in Australia).

Regards

geordie downunder

Have a positive attitude,as Henry Ford said "if you think you can ,you can ,if you think you can't ,you can't.Either way you will probably be proved right'.Start by reading the business and financial pages in the newspaper to learn the lingo.Your library should have a good selection of books on finance/investment.Very important is to learn the benefits of leverage and not be afraid of debt,debt is a tool to create wealth.Start reading Warren Buffets letter to shareholders,available on line at Berkshire hathaway,google should take you straight there and then click on to letter to shareholders.The stock exchange (www.asx.com.au ) has good online education for free and work at your own pace.The wealth section of the Australian on wednesdays gives basic info.Should you reach qualified investor status then the fun really starts.Trust me, finance /investment is the most fun you can have with your clothes on,and can be so rewarding, it is a skill that can be learnt like any other skill. Good Luck

geordie downunder

ermmm,fido has all required calculators on the site,I would put a link up but old buggers like me know nothing of computers.

GLR

My Industry Super fund (Sunsuper) is not on the QROPS list so I'm considering setting up another Super with a QROPS reg'd fund (probably Virgin).

Once the value is in Virgin, I'd then prefer to transfer the funds across to Sunsuper but I note Alan's comment above that Virgin would be obliged to report that transfer to HMRC who might then try to charge me the tax (probably at 40%) as Sunsuper is not a QROPS.

Has anyone had any experience of this in practice or can comment further on this point? It does seem unlikely that HMRC would try to chase someone whose assets were all outside of the UK because they had transfered from one Aussie super to another but you never know.

Many thanks

GLR

Swerv-o

What with Mad Uncle Gordon in charge? I imagine he'd make it a guilt edged priority to come after you just because you had the temerity to take all your money out of the UK!

I wouldn't want to run up any kind of debt with the UK tax people - not because I fear the reprecussions, but because largely one hand doesn't seem know what the other is doing, which can be far more dangerous...

I've just opened a Virgin Super, as for the first year certainly, it is by far the cheapest fund to run, and gives the most back in terms of cost effective life insurance and disablement cover for the money. The closest industry fund was Agest, but Virgin was only $9 more for the first year and offered an extra $20k worth of life insurance.

I'm going to attempt to transfer my old police pension into it now, but I suspect that I won't make the 6 month deadline now.

S

marker

You should be able to transfer quite quickly under the new QROPS because it really is much easier than before. As for HMRC coming after you if non-QROPS compliant you would be in trouble if receiving a UK state pension without it because they would reclaim tax from it.

Regards

temptininnit

Is the Virgin Super QROPS registered?

Ta

Swerv-o

Yes, it is.

I think it's pretty good value for money all in. I've done tons of research for it, and I think all round it's a pretty good product. Certainly in the first 3-5 years of your super it remains very competitive, even when compared to some of the industry supers.

S

temptininnit

A potential employer uses QSuper, I don't think it's registered. I'm starting to look around now at our options, we both have 10 years+ NHS Pensions.