tjo

Hi everyone,
I emigrated from the UK to Canada in Jan 2002, and now I am a fully fledged Permanent Resident here. Then the other day a letter arrived at my parent's home in England from the Inland Revenue, asking about my contributions to my state pension. Obviously they noticed I haven't been working since I emigrated.

Well, I'm a young fella, so I haven't contributed long enough to ever hope of seeing a pension from the UK being mailed over to Canada when I'm old and wrinkly, but it did make me wonder:
when I immigrated, did Canada TELL the UK that I'm over here now? Is that my responsibility to inform the British gov, Inland Rev...etc. that I'm no longer resident in Blighty? I mean, I don't want to renounce my British citizenship or anything, I was just curious if anyone else has ever tried letting them know before...

Any help or thoughts on the matter is greatly appreciated!

Cheers,
Toby

iaink

I believe it is your responsibility to inform the UK gov that you are no longer resident....you should probably do it for Tax reasons, it wont affect citizenship or anything.

I dont know if you can take whatever meager state pension contributions you have made there and bring it over here, as any UK state pension is not going to be index linked to inflation anyway, so better to have it here working for you can.

I know you can do it for company pension contributions, I was only working there for a couple of years as well, so I just took the pension plan lump sum and never did anything about the state pension. I did tell Inland revenue etc I was no longer resident in the UK though.

Iain

CalgaryAMC

Yes, you can inform them that you are no longer resident.

This is a good idea if only to tidy up things so that should you ever have any business in the UK again, it's not one of those left-behind messes that will come back to bite you in the ass when you least need it.

They will, however, demand that you fill a tax return for the last year you were present in the UK. So if you fled the country and didn't pay any taxes in 2002, you'll have to cough up.

lee2

And yes, Canada and the UK do have a reciprocal agreement.

Tinpusher

If you go to the Inland Revenue website you can print off a form P85 stating that you are no longer resident in the UK and mail it back to them.
If you were in the UK for less than 6 months in the tax year you left, then you should be entitled to a tax refund. Not sure how far back they allow claims though.
Good luck!

tjo

Thanks for all the replies! That's great... I'll definitely contact Inland Revenue. So, just to confirm, besides Inland Revenue, who else should I contact in the UK? I'd hate to miss somebody out

Thanks again!
Toby