Return to the UK

[Mike Teavee]

24 minutes ago, Jimbo53 said:

I am in the UK,returned and retired from Thailand in 2017,all up,between working in the UK and Oz until the end of their reciprocal Social Security Agreement in March 2001,i had  32yrs contributions,my mate in Pattaya paid £1000's,to make up contributions and  gets a fraction of the full pensiion,and is not a happy camper,after wasting his money,so i never paid up, my  full pension falls short by £22,which is then made up by Pension Credits to the full pension.This may be of some help to some people in the thro's of returning to the UK.

Yes, there are some scenarios where paying AVCs before April 2015 doesn't add anything to your pension as they re-baselined everybody's contributions at that date & started the new pension. 

 

I was lucky in that I was able to payback at Class 2 rates so paid approx £955 for 7 years, but most of these are before April 2015 & my record seems to indicate they don't count (it says I've got 36 years contributions now BUT need 4 more for the full pension), i'm still paying at Class 2 (it was £12.20 this month, highest I've seen it was around £15) so I'll carry on & take it up with them when I'm back in the UK next year 

 

Might be worth advising your mate to search the Martin Lewis sites as there was something in his columns or thisismoney pages a few years back whereby people were able to reclaim the voluntary contributions. 

 

I know I've said it somewhere, will try to dig a link out... 

 

 

[hobobo]

13 hours ago, Jimbo53 said:

Why would you register for Thai tax,if your not earning here? Any funds brought in from another would not be liable for Thai taxation.

It was "circumstantial". A good few years back my family were scattered all over the world (except in the UK!), and at the time I didn't have any reliable enough friends in the UK to forward my credit/debit cards to Thailand. My bank (HSBC) assured me that the only secure way to send the cards to Thailand was to make an official change of address. Little did I know that they were obliged by law to inform various other government departments, and in next to no time I received a notice from the Inland Revenue informing me that I was now a UK citizen, "not ordinarily resident for the tax purposes", or some such grandiose title. Getting rid of this new title proved a lot harder than inheriting it! 

[foreverlomsak]

21 hours ago, Surelynot said:

are those lump sums liable to tax in Thailand in anyway

I've seen nothing on lumps sums or monthly income specifically, all the information I've seen relates to your tax commitment for the year.

I've been taking lump sums over here for 15 years, of varying amounts large & small, the Thai tax office were only interested in my Thai Income, no mention was ever made regarding bringing funds from UK.

I'm not sure when they changed the Double Taxation (UK / Thai) agreement from "Tax is only payable in the source country circa 2004", that is income generated in UK is taxable in the UK only, and income generated in Thailand is taxable in Thailand only, to the current version which does leave you open to your income being taxed in both as you bring it in. As said before if you are not registered for tax in Thailand, it is unlikely at the current time that they will investigate you for tax, I have had a Thai tax ID since 2008 and nobody has ever queried me.

[foreverlomsak]

17 hours ago, Mike Teavee said:

(it says I've got 36 years contributions now BUT need 4 more for the full pension)

Don't understand this as the UK government web site for the new state pensions states you only need 35 years, unless a number of your years are at a reduced contribution rate e.g. you were not paying the full stamp for periods of time or were paying them from abroad or while at sea.

[foreverlomsak]

27 minutes ago, foreverlomsak said:

are those lump sums liable to tax in Thailand in anyway

here is the link to the HMRC document on tax relief on double taxation, see page 34 for Thailand, and I hope your brain is more accommodating to this type of document than mine, the last line under comments on the right side may be useful

Digest of Double Taxation Treaties April 2018 (publishing.service.gov.uk)

[Mike Teavee]

20 hours ago, foreverlomsak said:

Don't understand this as the UK government web site for the new state pensions states you only need 35 years, unless a number of your years are at a reduced contribution rate e.g. you were not paying the full stamp for periods of time or were paying them from abroad or while at sea.

Yes, I was "Contracted Out" for most of my career so I'm not sure whether the "Missing Years" are due to that or the fact that my backdated AVCs before April 2015 don't count... I'm going to have a chat with them when I next get to the UK (I know I can do it from Thailand but there's no rush).... in the meantime I'm continuing to pay at Class 2 rates (approx £155 a year) so am not too worried if I end up overpaying by 3-4 years... 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jimbo53]

12 hours ago, Mike Teavee said:

Yes, I was "Contracted Out" for most of my career so I'm not sure whether the "Missing Years" are due to that or the fact that my backdated AVCs before April 2015 don't count... I'm going to have a chat with them when I next get to the UK (I know I can do it from Thailand but there's no rush).... in the meantime I'm continuing to pay at Class 2 rates (approx £155 a year) so am not too worried if I end up overpaying by 3-4 years... 

 

 

 

 

 

Like you,my mate that paid £1000's in AVC's for no apparent benefit,and myself(were contractors)he paid a lump sum,due to date constrictions,he retired in 2015 in Thailand,after working there continuously for 11 years,even with making that payment,he onlý gets £460/pm UK S.Pension whilst living in Thailand,because he lives in Thailand,the 20+ years he worked in Oz under the then Social Security Reciprocal Agreement was not counted towards his UK Pension,whereas mine was after returning to the UK in May 2017,and being eligible for the pension in June 2017, i receive the full pension.

[partington]

On 12/17/2020 at 4:27 AM, foreverlomsak said:

Don't understand this as the UK government web site for the new state pensions states you only need 35 years, unless a number of your years are at a reduced contribution rate e.g. you were not paying the full stamp for periods of time or were paying them from abroad or while at sea.

As I understand it, it's because of this:  you needed 30 years' contributions to get a full pension before 2015. After 2015 they reformed pensions so that you needed 35 years, and contributions made up to 2015 were the new baseline.

 

As 30 years' contributions gave you the maximum amount in 2015, this baseline could not be increased by paying more contributions for anything above 30 years before 2015.

 

In other words, if you had 30 years' contributions up to 2015, but also say, 5 missing years before 2015, you could not increase your pension by paying those pre-2015 years because you were already at the maximum for your baseline. However contributions after that date do increase your pension, and for people who have many working years before retirement even more contributions than 35 will still increase your pension up to the maximum level.

 

This is a separate issue from  reductions due to opting out, which also affects your maximum achievable final amount, but how these two interact to determine your final amount is beyond me.

Edited December 18, 2020 by partington

[foreverlomsak]

4 minutes ago, partington said:

In other words, if you had 30 years' contributions up to 2015, but also say, 5 missing years before 2015, you could not increase your pension by paying those pre-2015 years because you were already at the maximum for your baseline. However contributions after that date do increase your pension, and for people who have many working years before retirement even more contributions than 35 will still increase your pension up to the maximum level.

 

This is a separate issue from  reductions due to opting out, which also affects your maximum achievable final amount, but how these two interact to determine your final amount is beyond me.

You've got a stage further than me in thinking re the period up to 2015, well done.

As I understood things no reduction was due to opting out, as opting in was a way to increase of the old stated maximum per years contributions, but you may be right with the new stated maximum as it goes a long way towards understanding the reduction that they have advised for being in a company pension scheme, contracted out, roughly 16%. That is in the old scheme contracting in increased the value but in the new scheme with basic max being higher contracting out gives reduction.

This now makes a lot more sense to the values they have quoted me for 3 years hence.

I knew I was missing something in the thought processes.

[blackcab]

@hobobo Do you have any updates you would like to share? Things that went well, or things that went awry?