UK State Pension for expats in Thailand - Paying Income Tax on the non existant yearly increases !!!

[Pumpuynarak]

Low and behold yet another year when i have to contact the HMRC to inform them that my increase in income and subsequently taxation on my state pension is incorrect as i'm a resident of Thailand and consequently don't receive any state pension yearly increases.

 

No problem getting it sorted with the resultant tax refund but i asked the question ''Why am i being subjected to this aggro when you and the DWP have my Thailand address and clearly know i am not receiving any increases'' ?

 

His reply, ''we only act on what information is supplied to us by the DWP'', he suggested i contact the DWP and inform them of what they already know ie i'm a Thailand resident and you have my Thai address so i obviously don't receive any pension increases and request to know why they are informing the HMRC each year that my state pension income has increased when it clearly has'nt.

 

Now my next step is to contact the DWP for an explanation as to their idiotic behaviour, i won't be holding my breath lol

 

Anyone else having this problem and if so what explanation was given to you by the DWP for their ridiculous behaviour.

 

Rant over lol

[Eff1n2ret]

The same has happened to me in the past but for some reason my tax assessment for this current year showed no increase in that pension. I do agree, you would think that in this day and age these government departments would be a bit more joined up. We are the victims of these anomalous and convoluted arrangements which pay no increases in some countries but do pay them in others, and we are so insignificant that they can't be bothered to sit down and programme their systems to take account of that.

[proton]

How can you be taxed on a state pension?

[mikebell]

59 minutes ago, proton said:

How can you be taxed on a state pension?

They add up all your income & the State pension is considered as part of it.  This may put you in a higher tax bracket.

In my case I am suffering from the OP situation.  When I retired I drew my State Pension immediately (aged 65 in the good old days!)  It was about 90 odd a week or roughly 360 a month.  I have never checked the coding until this year & see my State Pension listed under 'Income from other sources' as 10,109 UKP!  I am 80 and my pension has been frozen for 15 YEARS & has never varied.  Returning in three weeks for family visit & will be seeking an explanation.

[proton]

3 minutes ago, mikebell said:

They add up all your income & the State pension is considered as part of it.  This may put you in a higher tax bracket.

In my case I am suffering from the OP situation.  When I retired I drew my State Pension immediately (aged 65 in the good old days!)  It was about 90 odd a week or roughly 360 a month.  I have never checked the coding until this year & see my State Pension listed under 'Income from other sources' as 10,109 UKP!  I am 80 and my pension has been frozen for 15 YEARS & has never varied.  Returning in three weeks for family visit & will be seeking an explanation.

It's  the extra income which is taxed, not the state pension

[Chivas]

1 hour ago, proton said:

How can you be taxed on a state pension?

All income is totted up from all sources and is subject to income tax.....there are exemptions for example income arising out ofa ISA etc but the basic premise is all income is subject to tax outside of personal allowances

[Chivas]

Just now, proton said:

It's  the extra income which is taxed, not the state pension

No you misunderstand how it works with HMRC....State pension wont normally be taxed at source but forms part of overall income which is subject to tax where applicable

[proton]

Just now, Chivas said:

All income is totted up from all sources and is subject to income tax.....there are exemptions for example income arising out ofa ISA etc but the basic premise is all income is subject to tax outside of personal allowances

Yes but not the pension, everything over the personal allowance, and state pensions are normally bellow this still

[Chivas]

1 minute ago, proton said:

Yes but not the pension, everything over the personal allowance, and state pensions are normally bellow this still

Ok whatever. You're moving the goalposts. Remove the word state pension and change it to income. The end result is the same

 

Basic tax exemption code in uk is 1257L (£12,570)

 

Anything over that (outside of tax wrappers) from whatever source gets taxed

[Eff1n2ret]

16 minutes ago, mikebell said:

I have never checked the coding until this year & see my State Pension listed under 'Income from other sources' as 10,109 UKP!  I am 80 and my pension has been frozen for 15 YEARS & has never varied.  Returning in three weeks for family visit & will be seeking an explanation.

I can't think of any explanation other than that HMRC have indexed your state pension every year since you retired. I've had one or two phone calls to them over the years, and this year at least they seem to have registered the fact that I get no increases - but I submit a return every year because of house rental income. You don't need to wait 3 weeks to deal with this. Skype calls are very cheap.

[Ginkas]

Exactly the same for me. Been playing this game since January last year.

Explained error on their website link for current tax code query, accepted and told I would receive a reply in 15 days. - Nothing.

Rang and spoke to some who said "DWP had notified them of the increase"! Said I should send proof that I had not received it.

Sent copies of a selection of bank statements for the last 7 years showing no increase.

Rang again after a couple of months, told the letter had been received but is was "in the backlog".

Rang DWP and they said they would send an 'e-form' to HMRC which would clear it.

Tax code received this April - increase applied again!

Sent all bank statements for this year, explained everything, again, plus copies of the DWP website showing where increases aren't paid.

Also wrote to DWP with copies of the Tax Code notice.

Has been two months now and NOTHING!

[billd766]

2 hours ago, mikebell said:

They add up all your income & the State pension is considered as part of it.  This may put you in a higher tax bracket.

In my case I am suffering from the OP situation.  When I retired I drew my State Pension immediately (aged 65 in the good old days!)  It was about 90 odd a week or roughly 360 a month.  I have never checked the coding until this year & see my State Pension listed under 'Income from other sources' as 10,109 UKP!  I am 80 and my pension has been frozen for 15 YEARS & has never varied.  Returning in three weeks for family visit & will be seeking an explanation.

I am like you and get a frozen state pension, an Armed forces pension and a company pension, the last two DO get uprated every year.

 

I also get a P60 from each of those pensions every year, and I pay a small amount of basic rate tax on my Armed forces pension (the remains of my personal tax allowance of GBP 12,500 at 20%)  and the full basic rate of 20% tax on my company pension.

[billd766]

2 hours ago, Chivas said:

All income is totted up from all sources and is subject to income tax.....there are exemptions for example income arising out ofa ISA etc but the basic premise is all income is subject to tax outside of personal allowances

You will only be taxed on income deemed to be UK sourced by the HMRC.

 

If you worked for a UK company abroad on a contract then that income will be taxed. If you did the same job working on the same contract but for a non UK company you will not be taxed on that income.

 

Depending on where the second company is based you may have to pay tax on that income or you may have to pay withholding tax in the country where the contract is based.

[OJAS]

It is precisely because of this particularly shining example of UK Government bungling incompetence and ineptitude as highlighted by the OP that I have only elected to pay income tax on my occupational pension through my tax code, with tax on my remaining income consisting of the State Pension and rental income on a UK property being paid to HMRC on account separately. And, even though I no longer need in theory to file tax returns following the sale of the UK property in question 18 months ago, I have opted to continue doing so since the effort involved in filing a tax return is, in my perception (although others may well disagree, depending on their personal circumstances), considerably less than that involved in calling HMRC and/or DWP each year by phone to correct a tax coding error on their part - involving, as this always seems to, being placed on hold for an eternity until some real live human being can finally be bothered to pick up my call, with my long-suffering eardrums being "serenaded" in the meantime by the entire suite of Beethoven symphonies from start to finish or whatever other irritating muzak is inflicted on them!????

Edited June 10, 2023 by OJAS

[mikebell]

5 hours ago, Pumpuynarak said:

No problem getting it sorted with the resultant tax refund

How did you go about it?  As my pension has been frozen for 15 years it seems probable that I have been overpaying every year!  How far back might I expect a refund?

3 hours ago, Eff1n2ret said:

Skype calls are very cheap.

What number?  Whenever I've tried I am in a queue!  I have photo-copied sundry Income tax documents & bank statements & sent them via Thai Post.  I got a pink slip and was charged 300 baht.  After hearing nothing, I went back to the same Post office to find it had been shut down.  I suspect the girl booked a one-way ticket to Dubai.

I gave the same papers to my daughter with a Power of Attorney document to act for me.  She lives in UK but has not received as much as an acknowledgement.  Will be back in Blighty three weeks tomorrow.  Any suggestions?  

[BritManToo]

4 minutes ago, mikebell said:

What number?  Whenever I've tried I am in a queue!  I have photo-copied sundry Income tax documents & bank statements & sent them via Thai Post.  I got a pink slip and was charged 300 baht.  After hearing nothing, I went back to the same Post office to find it had been shut down.  I suspect the girl booked a one-way ticket to Dubai.

I gave the same papers to my daughter with a Power of Attorney document to act for me.  She lives in UK but has not received as much as an acknowledgement.  Will be back in Blighty three weeks tomorrow.  Any suggestions?  

You need a Government Gateway account where you can sort out all your income tax and claim refunds online.

https://www.gov.uk/log-in-register-hmrc-online-services

[Eff1n2ret]

33 minutes ago, mikebell said:

What number?  Whenever I've tried I am in a queue!

Oh yes, there's always a queue, and flying to the UK won't make that any shorter. I phoned them back in March, I see that the call took 38minutes 33 seconds, most of which was listening to some dire music, and the cost on Skype was 42 pence. The number was their "outside the UK number" - +44 15355 359022.

[mikebell]

13 hours ago, Eff1n2ret said:

Oh yes, there's always a queue, and flying to the UK won't make that any shorter. I phoned them back in March, I see that the call took 38minutes 33 seconds, most of which was listening to some dire music, and the cost on Skype was 42 pence. The number was their "outside the UK number" - +44 15355 359022.

Thank you.  More evidence of Broken Britain.

[mikebell]

14 hours ago, BritManToo said:

You need a Government Gateway account where you can sort out all your income tax and claim refunds online.

https://www.gov.uk/log-in-register-hmrc-online-services

Thank you.  I have this already but last time I tried I ran into a bewildering (for my age) array of choices.  Despite this being patently their error I found I was expected to do lots of work.

[Pumpuynarak]

16 hours ago, mikebell said:

How did you go about it?  As my pension has been frozen for 15 years it seems probable that I have been overpaying every year!  How far back might I expect a refund?

What number?  Whenever I've tried I am in a queue!  I have photo-copied sundry Income tax documents & bank statements & sent them via Thai Post.  I got a pink slip and was charged 300 baht.  After hearing nothing, I went back to the same Post office to find it had been shut down.  I suspect the girl booked a one-way ticket to Dubai.

I gave the same papers to my daughter with a Power of Attorney document to act for me.  She lives in UK but has not received as much as an acknowledgement.  Will be back in Blighty three weeks tomorrow.  Any suggestions?  

How did you go about it?

What i first did was send HMRC a query using the government gateway ''Tax code'' section telling them that the figure quoted for my weekly state pension for 2023/24 was incorrect and i quoted the correct figure. Now that action prompted a reply from them stating they had received my query and they were looking into it, that was dated 6/4/23 and i should receive a reply usually within 15 days.

 

When it got to 9/6/23 and i still had'nt received a reply i phoned them and after waiting 17 mins a guy named Matthew answered and he accessed my account and i explained to him that my state pension does not receive any increases as i am resident in Thailand. He informed me that he had made adjustments to the correct figure and any overpayment would be credited back to me. I then asked him why they were using the incorrect figure, he stated that they act on info received from the DWP so i would need to contact them with my query.

 

I have to say he was very pleasant and i thanked him accordingly. 

 

How far back might I expect a refund?

AFAICR i think its 6/7 years but i could be wrong.

 

What number?

+44 1355359022

Any suggestions?  

Phone them

 

In previous years this problem has been evident and i phoned them and received £370 credited to my UK bank account, this was for quite a few years of tax overpayment.

 

Good luck on getting your problem solved.   

 

 

[chang50]

I am in the same position as apparently many others are ie being taxed for an increase I do not get.Made a submission to HMRC thru the gateway site on 29/4/23 to this effect was given an estimated response date of 18/5/23.Still waiting for that their excuse is they are doing technical work on my submission or they are busier than normal.Hopefully this won't drag on too long..

[topt]

On 6/11/2023 at 4:52 PM, chang50 said:

or they are busier than normal.Hopefully this won't drag on too long..

Took them 14-16 weeks last year to apply my voluntary NICs payment to my account - this was a direct to their bank account transfer. Let's see how long it takes this year.......

Not sure what "normal" is post covid but several recentish articles about people/tax accountants/etc complaining about lead times with HMRC. 

 

Extending the deadline for AVC's to 2025 as mentioned in the pinned pension thread is a at least a step forward in acknowledging that they have problems........

[BritManToo]

5 minutes ago, topt said:

Took them 14-16 weeks last year to apply my voluntary NICs payment to my account

Took them 3 weeks to apply mine ........... but I did need to call them and have it updated manually.

[topt]

Just now, BritManToo said:

Took them 3 weeks to apply mine ........... but I did need to call them and have it updated manually.

Thanks. I called to make sure they had it and when it would be applied but they never offered to do it manually. I may ask them this time if it is still not applied in say 4 weeks.

[chang50]

On 6/11/2023 at 4:52 PM, chang50 said:

I am in the same position as apparently many others are ie being taxed for an increase I do not get.Made a submission to HMRC thru the gateway site on 29/4/23 to this effect was given an estimated response date of 18/5/23.Still waiting for that their excuse is they are doing technical work on my submission or they are busier than normal.Hopefully this won't drag on too long..

I now suspect this will drag on and on.Although my submission was marked completed about 2 weeks ago I am still paying too much tax on my private pension paid Sept 1st.I will see what happens in Oct...the service is shambolic at best grrr!