Reclaiming Tax????
 

Can anyone tell me if you are able to reclaim your tax from employment when you leave the country for Aus? I know you are able to if you are moving to an EU country.. also what happens to my pension *koff* contributions once I have left the UK? Do I get a eensy weensy pension from the UK when I am an old fogie?

Any ideas?

Cheers in advance

Yvonne :-)

Re: Reclaiming Tax????
 

Yvonne;
you can claim any unused tax allowance for the year you leave, you need a form P85 from your tax office,from what I know it seems that you get more back if you leave mid tax year, ie Sept-Nov as for the pensions if you have personal or occupational ones you might need some professional advice as it can become quite complicated.

Hope this helps a little

Paul and Adele

Re: Reclaiming Tax????
 

You can download the P85 form from the www.inlandrevenue.gov.uk website. I filled mine in and sent it off a couple of weeks ago, they have confirmed receipt and now I'm just waiting to hear if I'm due anything.

Re: Reclaiming Tax????
 

Hello Yvonne.

As Jacqui has said, you effectively claim the tax repayment via Inland Revenue form P85. By way of background info, the tax repayment arises because your personal allowance is given to you in equal amounts as the tax year progresses (ie 1/12 each month if you are paid monthly), but you are entitled to the whole year's allowance even if you leave the UK to emigrate part way through the tax year.

So, if you leave the UK after 4 months of the tax year you are able to claim the balance, or 8/12 of the year's personal allowance. The tax repayment then equals that amount x your marginal tax rate.

As to your UK pension - there can be tax issues in Australia (Foreign Investment Fund Rules, section 27CAA) if you keep the fund when you move to Australia, but the tax position can also depend on the fund value. Ask for the tax factsheet on Foreign Investment Fund Rules on the Collett & Co website if you are interested in knowing more.

Hope this helps.



Alan Collett (currently in the UK)
alan-at-gomatilda-dot-co-dot-uk
Registered Migration Agent Number 0102534
and a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales
http://www.gomatilda.co.uk, and
http://www.collettandco.co.uk

Re: Reclaiming Tax????
 

i was under the impression you had to send your P45 along with the P85 form Before you recieved anything Back?? Not 100% sure


Cheers
Jamie

Re: Reclaiming Tax????
 

Many many thanks to all that answered. I thought I was able to claim it, but was still a little unsure.. blah blah hence my question :-)

The one thing I am still unsure about it I have only paid my NI contributions.. not a private pension.... so...?!?!?!?!? Then again I spose I would be grasping at straws thinking that the contributions I had made would really come back to me :-/

Thanking you all again :-)

Yvonne

Re: Reclaiming Tax????
 

Yvonne,

You were not clutching at straws. NI contributions you have accrued in the UK entitle you to a proportion of the UK state pension, depending how many full years contributions you have paid plus some other factors. UK pension entitlement is payable in Aus and NZ, though there are some complications, eg pension not increased in line with inflation each year.

Check out your own particulars by completing a Retirement Pension Forecast available at http://www.dwp.gov.uk/lifeevent/bene...n_forecast.htm

This will also help you in your decision at to whether to continue making NI contributions even when you are no longer in the UK.

All the best

Re: Reclaiming Tax????
 

Given that the UK Government doesn't index pensions for those pensioners living in Australia I'm struggling to think of a good reason for contributing to the State Pension on a voluntary basis ...

Re: Reclaiming Tax????
 

Alan,

Well, here are several.

1. You might expect to live until you're 90. So you'll get 25 years of (currently) non-index-linked pension - a year's pension gives you back, say, 10 years' worth of minimum NI contributions so after year 5 of your pension it's all been worthwhile.

2. You may possibly go back to live in UK or a country where the pension would revert to the index linked level.

3. The pension is already index linked in lots of countries and pressure from UK pensioners living in NZ and Aus could in future mean the UK Govt decides to concede the same for those countries too.

4. Although there are no Govt guarantees, history would indicate that the UK pension always increases annually in real terms (above inflation but OK maybe less than average earnings) and the Govt would face huge political pressure if it wanted to reverse that trend. So today's pension will go further tomorrow when we youngsters start retiring.

Having said all that, I'm only playing DA and prefer to be completelyin control of my own finances and retirement planning.

All the best

Re: Reclaiming Tax????
 

Hello again New.

Yours are good points. It's just that personally I don't trust the UK Government to look after my interests and certainly not my pension - I dare say the reasons many want to leave the UK include the quality of life/law and order/etc administered by inept politicians over the last 10+ years. Why should my State pension be administered any better than the way the UK Government administers law and order issues? It's already well known that the UK Government treats National Insurance contributions as another form of tax which it spends as it sees fit rather than investing it - with the baby boomers reaching retirement at the same time as me, and an ageing population thrown in as well the likelihood of the basic State Pension having any meaningful value in 20+ years from now has to be questionable at best.

I'm not saying that politicians in Australia or NZ are any better in terms of their ability. It's more that the impact they have seems to be less significant - which is probably a function of the lower populations and larger land masses. But then again I'm probably biased towards favouring Australia ...

Rather than giving money to the UK Government voluntarily I'd prefer to make my own provision for retirement - which I guess means we're both singing from the same hymn sheet.

Best regards.