UK State pension in Oz

Closed Thread Subscribe

Thread Tools

Aug 2nd 2006, 9:49 am

#31

jumbo

Banned

Joined: Dec 2003

Posts: 150

Re: UK State pension in Oz

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wol

You have to have been paying in for a certain minimum time - you can contribute to Gordon Brown volutarily from Oz if you think it worthwhile.

The big thing is that the state pension will be frozen - ie., not indexed - if you come to live in Oz, or Canada, or South Africa etc. If you live in the USA, Philippines, EU, and a host of other countries then it will be indexed as if you are in the UK.

Don't ask: it is a national disgrace and has been fought by several groups for years against various hues of government. The whole thing I believe is going to the EU Commisssion for Human Rights but don't hold your breath.

All sorts of specious arguments have been advanced over the years to justify this blatant discrimination, and as each is shown to be fatuous another is dreamed up.

The current one is that it would be "too expensive" to index the pensions and would cost £400m. I note that the UK is currently overpaying - due to fraud and incompetence - £4Bn over two years in benefits.....

In any case, since when did it become a rational argument to say that something which has been paid for essentially by contract over the years can remain unpaid "because it is too expensive"? Stop paying *all* state pensions then - think how much *that* would save!

It will also be the case that some of any private pension might also be frozen if it fell into the "opted out" SERPS provisions - and that can be even more financially bruising.

(PS - If you are an MP, a Judge or a Civil Servant ignore that last bit - they are exempt, by a treasury trick).

Sorry to bang on, but you *did* ask!

If you did not opt out of SERPS your SERPS component would be frozen also! So you could not win either way. The only slight win on my situation is that I had some of my SERPS contributions directed to a personal pension which I am transferring to my Super fund in Australia

Aug 2nd 2006, 11:56 am

#32

Nicstids

Account Closed

Joined: Jan 2003

Posts: 759

Nicstids is an unknown quantity at this point

Re: UK State pension in Oz

Quote:

Originally Posted by nickyjohnt

Hi Wendy,
I sent my P85 off in Janurary and still waiting to hear back from them. I have contacted them a couple of times but yet to hear anything. I just think if i get anything back it will be a bonus

They have all my details I even worked for the government (Royal Navy) and knowing how that is run it dosen't surprise me things take along time to sort out.

Just glad to be away from there.

John

My OH was also in the RN and we sent off his P85 in January too. We heard about 10 days ago from the Centre for Non-Residents that his pension will be paid gross in future and he will get a refund of the tax paid for this tax year from HMPG. The tax refund for the last tax year will be dealt with by the IR in South Wales but we were told that it may take some time to process

Hopefully you should hear something soon.....

Aug 3rd 2006, 9:30 am

#33

Jimclevs

An Australian Citizen !!

Joined: Aug 2004

Location: Terrigal - NSW Central Coast since June 2005

Posts: 1,237

Re: UK State pension in Oz

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jimclevs

Nice one Rog!

Made me

Regards

Jim

..... and we've just received a communication to our address here in Australia from the UK Pension Service regarding applying for Pension Credit - which, of course, is only payable in UK !!

They even asked us if we would like to make an appointment for someone to visit us to discuss - perhaps one of their staff is looking for a freebie holiday!