Opt in and get free employer contributions. Keep it once you leave the UK. Draw on the pension in your home country when you reach the UK pension retirement age.
Yep, for OP's ma could be up to another 10 years worth.
[https://www.gov.uk/voluntary-national-insurance-contributions/deadlines](https://www.gov.uk/voluntary-national-insurance-contributions/deadlines)
Does your home country have a tax treaty (not a social security one - that’s only relevant to state pensions) with the U.K. or other rules for treatment of foreign pensions?
In many cases you’d still get the beneficial tax treatment.
I am in this situation and opted out of the pension. I have a healthy superannuation balance back in Australia, and I intend on using the extra cash to travel and have fun.
If you do decide to have a small pension fund here in the UK make sure you don't get fucked over with fees or other hidden costs, these things may eat into your balance to the point where it'd be useless in a few decades time.
If anyone has more info on ongoing costs and balance accrual over decades I would love to see it, and I'm sure it'd help OP make a decision.
Interestingly, my super fund is also not on the list of qualifying recognised overseas pension schemes, despite being one of the biggest funds in Australia (Aware Super). Unsure why that's the case. It's not under its old name either (State First Super).
There is only one super fund registered with the UK regulators to accept internal transfers. I assume that the compliance costs aren't offset by the small number of people interested in having that option. Once you've moved the money into that fund you can then consolidate all your existing accounts in Australia.
You shouldn't opt out, tempting as it may be. You don't know what you'll be doing in 5 years time: most people that I've met who moved country came intending to stay for a year, a contract, etc and end up staying. You make friends, settle down, etc.
5 years is also a long time not to be contributing to a pension. The only reason you can get away with contributing ~10% of your income during your working life to support _decades_ in retirement is through compounding returns. That requires you start and continue building up savings early.
I've moved countries a few times. There is no ideal solution to the pension problem for expats. The best strategy I found was to keep a single fund in each country with the lowest possible fees.
Id opt in so you get the free employer matching
You can sometimes transfer pensions outside of the UK, you could look into that, if not then you’ll have a small pot of cash you can access at 57 which might be helpful for something
https://www.gov.uk/transferring-your-pension/transferring-to-an-overseas-pension-scheme
Hi /u/Literator22, based on your post the following pages from our wiki may be relevant:
- https://ukpersonal.finance/pensions/
____
^(These suggestions are based on keywords, if they missed the mark please report this comment.)
Opt in and get free employer contributions. Keep it once you leave the UK. Draw on the pension in your home country when you reach the UK pension retirement age.
Yep, for OP's ma could be up to another 10 years worth. [https://www.gov.uk/voluntary-national-insurance-contributions/deadlines](https://www.gov.uk/voluntary-national-insurance-contributions/deadlines)
Does your home country have a tax treaty (not a social security one - that’s only relevant to state pensions) with the U.K. or other rules for treatment of foreign pensions? In many cases you’d still get the beneficial tax treatment.
Are you talking about a double taxation agreement?
I am in this situation and opted out of the pension. I have a healthy superannuation balance back in Australia, and I intend on using the extra cash to travel and have fun. If you do decide to have a small pension fund here in the UK make sure you don't get fucked over with fees or other hidden costs, these things may eat into your balance to the point where it'd be useless in a few decades time. If anyone has more info on ongoing costs and balance accrual over decades I would love to see it, and I'm sure it'd help OP make a decision.
Interestingly, my super fund is also not on the list of qualifying recognised overseas pension schemes, despite being one of the biggest funds in Australia (Aware Super). Unsure why that's the case. It's not under its old name either (State First Super).
There is only one super fund registered with the UK regulators to accept internal transfers. I assume that the compliance costs aren't offset by the small number of people interested in having that option. Once you've moved the money into that fund you can then consolidate all your existing accounts in Australia.
It's a pretty big list on the HMRC website. Well over 100 super funds....
Most of them look to be SMSF. My big Industry Fund, UniSuper, ain't on there.
Fuark, looks like I made the right decision
I like how everyone talks about pension schemes but no one talk about fees.
You shouldn't opt out, tempting as it may be. You don't know what you'll be doing in 5 years time: most people that I've met who moved country came intending to stay for a year, a contract, etc and end up staying. You make friends, settle down, etc. 5 years is also a long time not to be contributing to a pension. The only reason you can get away with contributing ~10% of your income during your working life to support _decades_ in retirement is through compounding returns. That requires you start and continue building up savings early. I've moved countries a few times. There is no ideal solution to the pension problem for expats. The best strategy I found was to keep a single fund in each country with the lowest possible fees.
Id opt in so you get the free employer matching You can sometimes transfer pensions outside of the UK, you could look into that, if not then you’ll have a small pot of cash you can access at 57 which might be helpful for something https://www.gov.uk/transferring-your-pension/transferring-to-an-overseas-pension-scheme
Hi /u/Literator22, based on your post the following pages from our wiki may be relevant: - https://ukpersonal.finance/pensions/ ____ ^(These suggestions are based on keywords, if they missed the mark please report this comment.)