pidster

hi, i am in the process of transferring from uk police to Edmonton police, and i am trying to find out about transferring police pensions from uk to Canada but i am not getting any answers from my personnel dept. Does anybody out there have any info or experiences that they could relay???????? many thanks

Davie McCaig

Hi Pidster,

I am in the process with Calgary police and as far as I am aware you cannot transfer your pension to Canada.....

It can be left until you are 65 then start claiming it....however I have been doing some research and as far as I am led to believe you can withdraw what you have paid into the pension scheme...(for me with 11 years service works out about £26,000) and do what you like with it over there...such as saving account,stocks shares, invest etc.

You obviously will not get the money that the police are "topping it up with".

I hope this helps ...I might be wrong and others may be able to assist but this is what I have found out.

Dave

pidster

Thanks dave, will make some enqs, was really hoping to transfer it though bah! humbug!

Davie McCaig

Pidster,

Yeah Im definate about that part it cannot be transferred

The officers from the recruiting team at calgary police made that clear

Dave

Almost Canadian

I am not a pension expert but I very much doubt that this is the case. Pension law prescribes what can and cannot be done with pension funds (irrespective of whether it is a private, company or State pension scheme). Given the choice, most people would withdraw the entire funds if they could and, put simply, they can't

I may be wrong though

Iain Mc

Be interested to hear more on this front as my other half will have to do something with a public sector (NHS) pension when we move. Finding out any information about it whatsoever (how much it's currently worth, etc.) seems to be well nigh impossible.

Almost Canadian

I have a public sector pension (Home Office). Basically it stays where it is until such time as you choose to take it as a pension and, at that stage, you have the same options open to you as someone in the UK would.

The only downside to this that I can foresee is that, whilst in the UK you can take up to 25% tax free, I am fairly confident that this "tax free" element would be classed as "worldwide income" by Canadian tax authorities and you would lose a fair portion of it in tax. I guess that that means that it will be best not to take any "tax free" element and have a larger annual income from the pension.

Iain Mc

Thanks, the literature we do have seems to suggest you can port it overseas as long as the receiving scheme is approved by HM Tax bods, however it would probably be easier to leave it where it is as you mention; it appears to remain index linked (unlike the state pension for expats in Canada, I believe).

Cheers, Iain

Davie McCaig

Thanks for that folks,

looks like I got some bad advice when enquiring what I can do with my pension.

Dave

Davie McCaig

however..............surely you are entitled to the money you have paid into a pension fund?

Almost Canadian

It depends what you mean by entitled. The fund is yours but you cannot simply withdraw it and spend it. It all has to do with the fact that pensions are "tax havens". It doesn't matter whether you, your employer or someone else has paid the funds in, once they are in, pension rules apply to those funds and what you are allowed to do with them is set in law.

The debate about whether it is fair to force people to buy annunities has been raging for some time (particularly when the annunity "rates" dipped some years ago)

rae

from one of the senior advisors in my force, who seemed very knowledgeable and has been doing the job for at least 10yrs to my knowledge.
canada currently has no agreement between public sector services of other countries to transfer pension rights, however an agreement is currently tabled and expected to be ratified 2008/9. until then pension is frozen, remains index linked, no withdrawal whatsoever, min age to draw-60yrs, can be paid into any account in the world, should you draw it from the UK. it can be moved at any point up until you are 59yrs, then for the final year it stays put if nothing has been sorted by then. worse case scenario as i see it, is i'll have a half pension over here, and a 3/4 one with EPS, probably not much difference together than a full UK one.
got to say this is the least of our concerns at the moment, its a long time off and you're a long time dead and lets face it, life expectancy for long pension withdrawals isn't great in our line of work eh.

gopher

both my wife and i are ex uk officers now in canada and on speaking to an ex pat financial advisor here he is somehow?? able to withdraw peoples uk pension contributions and put them into rrsps over here . i have asked if this is the same for gov pensions and he is unsure but is going to enquire ....

rae

as last post. could be conspiracy to keep the money over in UK and lets face it, if you told me that was the case and a martian employed by Blair was guarding it i wouldn't be suprised. that said, my contact was very nice and well informed, so appears correct.

Helen Parnell

Hi,

Sorry to upset all of you that thought you can not get your police pension over to Calgary. YES you can. I was in the Met with my husband for 15 years. We both transfered our pension over, and it is now actually earning far more money in stocks, shares etc. The only stipulation that the Met made was that we can not have it til we are 55 and then get a big lump sum to reinvest and we were not allowed to join the pensions together. Just in case I divorce him or something.

Our finance guy has already assisted other CPS guys as well as teachers. We were the first people he assisted, and it did take a while. So don't waste time, if you are interested then PM me and I will give you his name and contact details.