Kentonmag

Ok I am a little clearer in one respect which I have left in your quote. We did both my wife's and my own pensions back to back. The first was my wife's and Tramway advised against transfer, which we did in her case keep it in her UK Company Pension. In my case when the advice from Tramway was not to transfer I had to sign off on a document stating I was waiving the advice given not to transfer.

And whilst writing I have just received this from Blacktower related to your points:"The reason we use Tramway is that the UK report must come from an FCA regulated Company. Whilst in theory Blacktower could have our own 'in-house' report writing facility, our position is that how could a suitability report written by us be impartial when at the same time our bread and butter is helping people transfer their UK pensions. Hence, we use Tramway as our preferred report writer, as they receive their fee whether they advise to transfer or not, ensuring the advice is impartial"."GIB and offshore offices are not FCA regulated, and have no requirement to be. In respect of the final advice you recieved on your pension transfer that was issued by Tramway, who are FCA regulated, which meets the UK requirements. We simply facilitated the transfer".

Otto The Squid

Please don't take this as any criticism of you at all. Something is not stacking up here.

Did the UK office tell you this or was it one of the offshore offices?

Blacktower UK "do have" the permissions and licences to write these reports. There is no "in theory" about it. That means they have pension transfer specialists in the UK, with the additional substantial costs of the PI cover and ongoing regulatory scrutiny.

I will leave this with you "Why would a firm go to the trouble of getting the FCA UK licences, qualified staff, open themselves up to considerably more FCA scrutiny, expensive PI cover and then send you to a competitor to do the job that they are perfectly able to do themselves?" ( I have never heard of any UK firm doing this for the reason they state )

Kentonmag

Offshore office (Based in Miami). Early in the process I did phone Blacktower in the UK to make sure everything was legit.

As to your other point I can only refer to my contacts comment of impartiality.

There have been a few times over the years I have gone to my dentist and he tells me I require a root canal done, so he sends me off to another dentist, at another facility, to carry out the work, and I'm left scratching my head?

Otto The Squid

Thanks for the responses. I am sure in my own mind why they are doing this- will discuss with our compliance officer tomorrow.

Siouxie

I still don't get why you would appoint a US based company to handle your pension / SIPP rather than the UK division which at least is regulated.
I'll be interested to hear both sides

Kentonmag

For no other reason than when looking for options, as how to navigate the recently introduced Canadian QROP's conundrum, I looked around for Companies who specialized in overseas Ex Pats. I had Blacktower bookmarked for close to a year, whilst hoping the QROP's ban would be lifted on Canada. When I decided that I'd waited long enough and wanted to retire early I got onto my bookmarked Blacktower site and made the connection.
I've personally been nothing but impressed by the service I have received, I had a few people on this Ex Pats site warning me against fraudulent scams etc, however it has been very professional. In the 12 weeks since my money was transferred I have had many newsletters and 3 phonecalls to talk about strategy and goals, that is way better than I am getting off my Canadian investment Company.
I really don't see anything that has happened being any different if I had used Blacktower in the UK, or the offshore subsidiary. Their other big offshore subsidiary based in Gibralta deals heavily with Ex Pats living in Spain, Italy, Greece and other parts of Europe. The subsidiary I am with are set up to deal with North American and the Caribbean Ex Pats.
Would I be wrong in assuming that the monthly "British Canadian" newspaper that advertises "transferring your UK pensions to Canada" on the front page is offshore and not handled from the UK. And by the way I am still not sure how that Company can advertise it's ability to transfer pensions unless it's not referring to UK Company pension transfers??

Siouxie

I have absolutely no clue what you are referring to with regards to a monthly newspaper advert and can't comment on something I haven't seen.

Kentonmag

FYI...…...…..The newspaper is called "The British Canadian" and advertises itself as "Canada's National Newspaper for the British Community" it is available free in every "British goods" shop, and in my case a few fish and chip shops around the St Catharines, Hamilton and Niagara region. On the very top, on the front page, there are 2 union jacks and an advertisement saying "Transfer Your UK Pensions to Canada" with a red double decker bus and a phone number <snip>.

Siouxie

Ah.. well I don't go to British goods stores nor fish and chip shops..

Otto The Squid

Is that company still trading? Some of the information on its website, as well as being full of technical errors, is years out of date.

Evengers

Otto The Squid

This is the form you would need to get income tax relief at source in Canada https://assets.publishing.service.go...individual.pdf However, you need to be non-UK resident for tax purposes before you complete this as the Canadian Revenue Agency needs to confirm you are tax resident- page 1.

Then, arrange for a payment from your UK pension ( will be taxed in the UK ) that will generate a tax code to be sent to HMRC who will then issue an NT code for the future payments. It can take a few weeks but you can phone HMRC for progress updates. I would recommend the +44 135 535 9022 number as it seems to get answered quickly.

Hurlabrick

What Otto said.

I was receiving income from a UK Income Drawdown plan when we moved to Canada for good in November 2017.

I filed the HMRC P85. Later, I completed the snappily entitled HMRC 'United Kingdom / Canada Double Taxation Convention (SI1980 Number 709and Protocols' form (note no HMRC form number!), send the original to CRA in London, Ontario for them to stamp and confirm I was a Canadian tax payer, then sent this on to HMRC.

I continued to have UK tax deducted, then in June 2018 HMRC confirmed I was no longer a UK Tax payer and issued an 'NT' tax code to my income drawdown provider. HMRC issued me a tax refund of all deductions made at source from Nov 2017 and I now receive income drawdowns with NO UK tax deducted (of course I declare these as overseas income for CRA and am taxed by them now!

I believe I was granted 'split tax year treatment' by HMRC.

All in all, took 7 / 8 months to work through.

Evengers

Hurlabrick

I was told by my Canadian tax accountant that you can only 'pension share' with your spouse from age 65 (or maybe it was age 66) onwards. I am a couple of years shy of this yet!