Ali

Thank you Nic and Andy. I will email you shortly Andy. Many thanks

Hi, my husband and I have been resident in Adelaide since 2008/2009 as permanent residents and transferred our Civil Service pensions in 2011 under the then QROPS scheme through Tynan McKenzie (now iPAC). We are both aged 56 this month. Our understanding at that time was that after 5 years we could move this to any other Fund of our choice without penalties and access it if we so wished. We do not wish to access it, however, last June we did wish to roll it over to our current employers fund (Australian Super and my husband's is Super SA triple S) only to be advised by Australian Super at that time that if we did proceed, we may be hit with 55% UK tax as it "MAY" be deemed as an unauthorised payment, but they were not sure if we fell into this category. This was the first that we discovered that the rules had changed and it affect us. We therefore halted the rollover immediately and discovered that the UK had changed the law and that the list of some 60 QROPS qualified companies had been slashed to one. Our current company advised that there would be no implications tax or otherwise if we wished to roll it over to another NON-Qrops fund as we have been away from the UK since 2009. However, I have contacted the UK Tax Office and I am receiving conflicting information and that the legislation has been changed from 5 years to 10 years the period of a member's non-UK residence during which tax charges can apply to payments and that if I transfer to another company 55% of the total amount transferred will be payable. I am worried that the company I am with is now no longer QROPS registered - how does this affect my account - is it okay as when we transferred in 2011 they were originally qualified and that we will remain okay as long as we do not move to another company ?? ie., for another 5 years? Also, as we are unhappy with the large amount that we are paying our company, they have offered to change where our funds are invested and thus reduce our costs with them. However, again, by doing this, are we still compliant and not liable to pay UK tax as long as we say with the same company? I am really confused by it all and would ideally like to rollover to my Australian Super but definitely do not want to pay 55% tax, which seems grossly unfair. I also thought that by being over 55 this could be done without implications? Is anyone able to assist me or point me in the right direction? Has anyone any experience of having transferred over prior to the 2015 changes? Hope you can help with some or all of the above. Regards, Ali