I’m sure this has probably been asked multiple times but time is against me. I’ve got an old company pension in the UK. To me it’s not an insignificant amount. I’d forgotten I had it until a couple of months back and almost fell off my chair when I saw what the transfer value was. I contacted one of the many companies out there. I told the guy what the value was and we went from there and I thought it was going forward, a few weeks later he came back to me and said they were unable to assist as it was below the amount they work with. If they really worked with company pensions that would be impossible. I don’t know where to turn. I’ve got three weeks left before I’m at the end of the transfer period. Can anyone offer any advice?

Thanks for the reply, that’s the issue, I’ve just turned 57 if I cash it in the UK side are going to want their pound of flesh and Uncle Sam is going to class is as income coming over. In theory once that happens it’s going to be worth less than 50% of the current value.

No, not declared on any tax form. I had gone into a company pension plan back in about ‘87 and didn’t think any more about it. They transferred me out here in ‘93. I got a letter from them in around 2007 that they were thinking about getting out of the company pensions business and offered a bonus to move it but I only had a weeks notice and couldn’t do a thing in that time so I told them I didn’t care about the carrot of the bonus and leave it where it was which was an option and I forgot all about it again until I came across some paperwork..To me it’s just my pension that I’d forgotten all about but now it’s become a nightmare. No accountant doing my taxes since 1993 had ever asked if I had a pension in the UK, after the first 10 years of being here seeing that I always said no to having any foreign savings as they always called it stocks and shares and savings accounts, they stopped asking. My new accountant is an ex IRS agent I’m going to go in and see him this morning re any immediate tax implications but that still doesn’t help my situation about what on earth to do now although I really do appreciate the heads up.

A thought, while I had forgotten all about the pension, originally when I moved here I honestly gave it no thought at all as it was just a pension but I’ve never received any paperwork about it after the letter from the company offering me the option to move it. They had my address. From 2007-2012 I lived at that same address and didn’t get a thing. When I remembered about it I went to the govt site to look for the plan, found the original plan and found it archived, I called the correct govt department and was told that hopefully I’d be able to find my pension..... I was but no thanks to them. When I found who had it, it was a huge relief. But my address would have been the same one as 2007. This thing has grown surely something at some time should have been coming out or are these things just left to sit there?

I don’t have a financial advisor, just gone through various accountants in my time here to do taxes. We’re straight forward taxes, but we’ve always had them done professionally as even though I’ve got a brain taxes aren’t something I’d play with. Look at where I am now.....

The only things I have are a yellowed set of papers from 2007 showing when I entered the scheme, when I left it, what the value was in 2007, then the nice new white piece of paper from 2 months ago.

Thank you. I guess I’ll be going to see my acct at 9 this morning. All I have as I said, are the papers they had sent in ‘07, and that was only because they were thinking about no longer doing the group pension, I found out a couple of years ago they went from a PLC to private. It was coming across these that’s triggered this. I really do thank you for your help.

Well I can say hand on heart I’m guilty of brain fog but absolutely not of hiding this. The value in 2007 was 43K and it’s gone up a lot and 2 years ago we were surrounded by forest fires due to no rain for months and I’d thrown all valuable papers into a brief case so that in the event we got a mandatory evacuation it would be a case of grabbing that, the family and the dogs and go. I decided to sort them out... my husband and I both have medical issues, mine is nothing compared to his so believe me, losing this windfall would make me cry.

I’m on the way to my accountants, I’ve just pulled the old and new paperwork, what I never noticed was info on a company my ex employer was going to hand the plan over to. Surely they would have given them my info or were my funds just handed over with my name and NI number? No wonder I had a hard time tracking them down to where they are now.