News
Australian pension transfer changes
"Scare tactics" have recently been used by a selection of Australian financial advisers to encourage pension transfers from UK schemes
"Scare tactics" have recently been used by a selection of Australian financial advisers to encourage pension transfers from UK schemes and capitalise on initially "ambiguous" changes to the Australian system on 1st July.
Geraint Davies of Montfort International, a company which offers financial planning services for emigrants, claims that some Australian advisers "procured business by carefully contrived advertising campaigns to panic former UK residents and nationals into transferring their pension funds to Australia. Their reason has been one not fuelled by their client's best interests but invariably by their own."
The main thrust of the campaigns was that UK pension transfers to Australia were to stop completely. UK pension scheme members appear to have been cajoled into believing that they had until 30th June 2007 to move their UK pensions funds to Australia. As a result, many migrants and former UK residents had been led to believe that they are, in Davies' words, "at the last chance saloon," because Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) was about to slam the door shut.
Register for your FREE emigration starter pack
Subscribe to Emigrate magazine. Read more ...
04 July 2007