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State pension - time living or working abroad

hamzahf
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State pension - time living or working abroad

#127516

Postby hamzahf » March 23rd, 2018, 12:58 pm

On an invitation letter received from DWP to take up the state pension, under items needed to be at hand is a question:

3. Dates of time spent living or working abroad.

It potentially applies, but during that period UK tax returns were reported to HMRC and NI contributions and any tax on UK-specific self-employed earnings paid.

I am trying to gauge whether this is a loaded question that might effect pension entitlement under these circumstances. For HMRC, the need was to prove time in the UK did not exceed limits in order not to pay tax on foreign earnings, but in the case of the state pension invitation does a different criteria apply?

Can anyone direct me to further information that might address these specific circumstances (ie full NI record through period working abroad)? I have asked our accountant, but other opinion or personal experience would be helpful before I go online to follow up the invitation.

Many thanks
Hamzah

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Re: State pension - time living or working abroad

#127520

Postby Lootman » March 23rd, 2018, 1:11 pm

I'm not 100% certain about this but I believe that there are certain provisions that apply if you can draw a state pension from the UK and also from another country. In such a situation the UK pension may be reduced to take into account the other pension received. Or vice versa.

So if you contributed 20 years in the UK and another 20 years in, say, Holland, then an adjustment may be applied (as well as any tax due to be paid).

If such a situation applies then it might be worthwhile to defer receiving at least one of them, but I think you'd really need to look at the detailed rules to know the best way forward.

hamzahf
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Re: State pension - time living or working abroad

#127533

Postby hamzahf » March 23rd, 2018, 1:53 pm

Lootman wrote:I'm not 100% certain about this but I believe that there are certain provisions that apply if you can draw a state pension from the UK and also from another country. In such a situation the UK pension may be reduced to take into account the other pension received. Or vice versa.

So if you contributed 20 years in the UK and another 20 years in, say, Holland, then an adjustment may be applied (as well as any tax due to be paid).


That helps me understand the significance of the question, thank you. The overseas employment was in a Gulf country; not taxed at source and with no accrued pension benefits.

Regards
Hamzah

mc2fool
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Re: State pension - time living or working abroad

#127704

Postby mc2fool » March 24th, 2018, 1:13 am

hamzahf wrote:
Lootman wrote:I'm not 100% certain about this but I believe that there are certain provisions that apply if you can draw a state pension from the UK and also from another country. In such a situation the UK pension may be reduced to take into account the other pension received. Or vice versa.

So if you contributed 20 years in the UK and another 20 years in, say, Holland, then an adjustment may be applied (as well as any tax due to be paid).

That helps me understand the significance of the question, thank you. The overseas employment was in a Gulf country; not taxed at source and with no accrued pension benefits.

No, it's exactly the opposite and is for a completely different reason. The UK state pension is based on contributions and qualifying years and is, at worst (and in most cases), unaffected by time working abroad and, at best, increased by it. There are two main cases:

a) Qualification. E.g. both the UK and USA require 10 years of contributions to get any state pension at all (actually, in the US it's 40 quarters). Less that that you'd normally get nothing. However, although I worked in the US for only 4.5 years, because the US and UK (amongst others) recognise contributions in each others countries for qualification (not amount) purposes, and I've got more than 5.5 years in the UK, I will get a state pension from the US in relation to my 4.5 years of contributions there (hey, it's better than nothing :D). Ditto, any time worked in the US counts towards the UK 10 year qualification threshold. https://www.gov.uk/new-state-pension/li ... g-overseas

b) EEA pension calculations. As above (qualification) plus the calculating of a "whole EEA service" pro rata amount for countries that have non-linear systems. The UK has a linear system: each contributing year gets you the same additional amount of state pension, but France, for example, has a non-linear system: 40 years of contributions gets you more than twice the state pension of 20 years. However, if you worked 30 years in the UK and another 10 in France, then France would add the two together and work out what you'd get for 40 years of contributions and then give you 10/40ths of that, which would be more than what you'd get for just the plain 10 years in France. I worked in France too and this boosts my basic French state pension by about a third. https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/w ... dex_en.htm

Additionally, it's DWP that applies for your state pension(s) from other EEA countries for you. So, those are the reasons they ask the question, but having said all that, I don't see any Gulf countries in the list of ones the UK has a social security agreement with, so it's all not much use for you :D

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Re: State pension - time living or working abroad

#127711

Postby Nimrod103 » March 24th, 2018, 8:06 am

hamzahf wrote:
Lootman wrote:I'm not 100% certain about this but I believe that there are certain provisions that apply if you can draw a state pension from the UK and also from another country. In such a situation the UK pension may be reduced to take into account the other pension received. Or vice versa.

So if you contributed 20 years in the UK and another 20 years in, say, Holland, then an adjustment may be applied (as well as any tax due to be paid).


That helps me understand the significance of the question, thank you. The overseas employment was in a Gulf country; not taxed at source and with no accrued pension benefits.

Regards
Hamzah


I don't quite follow this because you said:
but during that period UK tax returns were reported to HMRC and NI contributions and any tax on UK-specific self-employed earnings paid.
So you did pay NI contributions while working abroad? If so the DWP must have that record, and can base your pension on it.
I tend to worry this may be a trick question. I also worked for a significant time abroad, but always for UK employers who paid my NI contributions while abroad, in order to maintain my rights to a UK state pension. Are the DWP trying to now disavow that?

mc2fool
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Re: State pension - time living or working abroad

#127753

Postby mc2fool » March 24th, 2018, 11:55 am

Nimrod103 wrote:I tend to worry this may be a trick question. I also worked for a significant time abroad, but always for UK employers who paid my NI contributions while abroad, in order to maintain my rights to a UK state pension. Are the DWP trying to now disavow that?

No, as I said above, it's quite the opposite.

There used to be a time when they asked the same question when you requested a state pension forecast and they'd send you a booklet detailing the social security agreements between each country you listed and the UK, one booklet for each country. However, last time I got one they just pointed me at NI38 on the web and related pages, and now it looks like they don't even ask the question anymore. (The information in and with the state pension forecasts nowadays is pitiful compared to what it used to be, but that's another story...)

You can get a state pension forecast and that'll be what you'll get (unless you contribute more of course). It will be unaffected by time abroad -- unless you don't have 10 qualifying years, in which case having worked abroad may make the difference between you getting nothing and something. See case (a) "qualification" in my post above.

In your case you may also be able to get a pension from the countries you worked in for those years, in addition to your UK pension, dependent, of course, on your contributions in those countries, their state pension rules, and any agreements between them and the UK of the sort I mentioned in my previous post.

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Re: State pension - time living or working abroad

#201361

Postby 10to20toptax » February 14th, 2019, 3:22 pm

mc2fool wrote:
b) EEA pension calculations. As above (qualification) plus the calculating of a "whole EEA service" pro rata amount for countries that have non-linear systems. The UK has a linear system: each contributing year gets you the same additional amount of state pension, but France, for example, has a non-linear system: 40 years of contributions gets you more than twice the state pension of 20 years. However, if you worked 30 years in the UK and another 10 in France, then France would add the two together and work out what you'd get for 40 years of contributions and then give you 10/40ths of that, which would be more than what you'd get for just the plain 10 years in France. I worked in France too and this boosts my basic French state pension by about a third.

Additionally, it's DWP that applies for your state pension(s) from other EEA countries for you. So, those are the reasons they ask the question, but having said all that, I don't see any Gulf countries in the list of ones the UK has a social security agreement with, so it's all not much use for you :D

I would be grateful for your insights re claiming a French pension.

My OH applied for his small French pension several months ago and has now at last received his 'Notification de retraite'. The basic state pension (retraites de base) element looks correct, but there is no mention of his supplementary pensions (retraites complementaires), which have always been included on previous statements. A French former colleague thinks that the Agirc-Arrco element should have been included. Is this correct, i.e. have the French authorities made an error or does the supplementary pension have to be applied for separately? With the potential for a hard Brexit hovering over us, this is not proving quite as straightforward as we had hoped.

Also, how do you manage to get the 'attestation d'existence' certified?
Getting to the French Consulate is straightforward for OH at the moment but that could change in future.
(links removed as unable to include for some reason)

kiloran
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Re: State pension - time living or working abroad

#201366

Postby kiloran » February 14th, 2019, 3:53 pm

10to20toptax wrote:I would be grateful for your insights re claiming a French pension.

My OH applied for his small French pension several months ago and has now at last received his 'Notification de retraite'. The basic state pension (retraites de base) element looks correct, but there is no mention of his supplementary pensions (retraites complementaires), which have always been included on previous statements. A French former colleague thinks that the ARRCO-AGRIC element should have been included. Is this correct, i.e. have the French authorities made an error or does the supplementary pension have to be applied for separately? With the potential for a hard Brexit hovering over us, this is not proving quite as straightforward as we had hoped.

Also, how do you manage to get the 'attestation d'existence' certified?
Getting to the French Consulate is straightforward for OH at the moment but that could change in future.
(links removed as unable to include for some reason)


When I applied for my UK pension, the process included a notification that I had pensions I'd earned in France. A month or so later I was contacted by the french state pension people at Carsat Normandie in Rouen and everything worked smoothly from then on.

For the AGIRC-ARRCO supplementary pensions, I had to chase this myself. I think (may be wrong) that supplementary pensions are handled by various organisations, as in the UK. My AGIRC-ARRCO is handled by Humanis https://humanis.com/ but it may be a different organisation for you. Once I contacted them by email the pension payment was set up very quickly.

I think if you contact https://www.agirc-arrco.fr/ by email they will quickly point you in the right direction.

Carsat and Humanis independently contact me every 9-12 months for the Attestation d'existence. Sadly, I have to handle each one separately, though that's not a big deal. Initially, the french embassy said the only acceptable process was:
  1. Get my GP to write a letter confirming I was alive.
  2. Send the letter, the attestation and a copy of my passport (and a SAE!) to the French embassy in London
  3. Embassy returned the signed and stamped form to me
  4. I sent the form to the relevant organisation in France
After a few years, they decided that some ruling or other meant that the embassy was no longer permitted to sign and stamp the form if I was not present, so I now go to see my local Justice of the Peace. I swear an oath, present my passport and the JP signs and stamps the attestation which I then send to France. The process works fine.

Hope this helps.

--kiloran
Last edited by kiloran on February 14th, 2019, 3:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

mc2fool
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Re: State pension - time living or working abroad

#201367

Postby mc2fool » February 14th, 2019, 3:54 pm

Kinda busy at the moment, but briefly...
10to20toptax wrote:does the supplementary pension have to be applied for separately?

In a word, yes. Start here: https://espace-personnel.agirc-arrco.fr/auth/login

10to20toptax wrote:Also, how do you manage to get the 'attestation d'existence' certified?
Getting to the French Consulate is straightforward for OH at the moment but that could change in future.

I did mine at the French Consulate in London (opposite the Natural History Museum). Straightforward enough, but be prepared for airport style security.

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Re: State pension - time living or working abroad

#201371

Postby 10to20toptax » February 14th, 2019, 3:57 pm

Thank you kiloran and mc2fool. That's very helpful and just what I needed to know. I haven't been able to find this information anywhere else online. :D
Last edited by 10to20toptax on February 14th, 2019, 4:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

kiloran
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Re: State pension - time living or working abroad

#201373

Postby kiloran » February 14th, 2019, 4:00 pm

mc2fool wrote:I did mine at the French Consulate in London (opposite the Natural History Museum). Straightforward enough, but be prepared for airport style security.

Not much different at my local JP court :)

--kiloran

mc2fool
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Re: State pension - time living or working abroad

#201383

Postby mc2fool » February 14th, 2019, 4:17 pm

BTW, if you haven't already you'll want to register (create "your space") on https://www.lassuranceretraite.fr/portail-info/accueil

You'll also want to register on the site of the outfit that is providing the supplementary pension. Having registered and logged into the aforementioned agirc-arrco site click on "Mon groupe de protection sociale".


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