burton bunch

Hi guys

Have any of you transferred a UK personal Pension plan into RRSP (Registered Retirement Savings Plan) ? Or does anyone know if you can do this ? and if so how do you go about it ?

Cookie

We have been advised to freeze our UK pension plans, cash in our endowments and run ....................... (our financial advisor plans to leave UK too )

burton bunch

Did your financial advisor give you any reason given for freezing the Penisons - have already thought about the endownment side of it.

Cookie

I think that you may reduce the value of your plan if you move it. I also think its not that straight forward (money paid into pensions is tax free etc, wouldn't surprise me if they wanted some of that back too).

I do know that the UK state pension (if there will be one in the future!) is frozen from the day you leave Blighty and is NOT indexed linked :scared:

Hope someone else can be a bit clearer -my head is a bit all over the place at the moment. House went on the market less than 2 weeks ago and closing date for sealed bids is tomorrow!!!!

burton bunch

Hi yes can do

Good luck with the house and thanks for the help

Gaynor

printer

Hi Burton Bunch
This has been covered before to some degree so check out this former posting it may help.

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...light=pensions

burton bunch

Thanks Printer

So am I right in assuming that all RRSP's are locked in ones and the Canadian public don't have the choice to move their pension funds around ?

Steve_P

RRSP's can be personal or within a company plan.

If you cash in an RRSP before turning it into a RIF (Registered Income Fund) then you will be taxed at your current rate. I guess the same applies even when you turn it into a RIF but it is assumed your income is going to be less at that time.

Company pensions are transferable in Canada. Now whether that's true for all company pension plans I'm not sure. Someone with more knowledge than I would have to answer that.

Cheers
Steve

burton bunch

Hi Steve

Did you take your personal pensions over to Canada? If so did you use an IFA and if so please PM details.

Ta Very Much

Gaynor

Steve_P

Sorry can't help you there.

I arrived in Canada a month after my sixteenth birthday in 1963 and didn't have a clue what a pension was at that time of my life.

Investor

If you are thinking of topping up your N.I. contributions for your state pension make sure you don't go over the 30 years or you will waste your money. See my previous post on this http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=400739

Helen Parnell

We each a pension plan which we moved over with absolutely no problem and now have a better scheme than we did in the UK. We kept our endowments in the UK and that is now the kids 'college' fund.

Piff Poff

We have transferred 3 pensions succesfully and one has got stuck - same company as one of the succesful transfers, the excuse is there has been a change in the law in the UK restricting where a pension goes to, the 3 succesful ones are all in investments rather than pensions. All were applied for at the same time and they were all the same sort of pension so why one has a problem we and our financial advisor is not sure about.

JAJ

What's the plan if you find you can't stay in Canada, eg PR refused, or if you later decide you don't want to stay?

Almost Canadian

So I take it that you are not intending telling the Canadian Tax Authorities about this then ? If you do, you will face losing a massive percentage of it to them