I have several small private pensions with Legal & general etc. with which I will buy an annuity in the near future. However I haven’t found any satisfactory answer as to whether they should be declared on the new online tax form. All I have found is this link which says not : Connexion article.
Strikes me it should be declared as something - perhaps assurance vie?
Are you sure that’s a sensible thing to do Bob? It’s not a good time for annuities and it hasn’t been for quite some time.
And, as my OH discovered, there are very few companies in UK now who have passporting rights to provide annuities for non residents. And those that do offer even worse rates than they do to UK residents.
Research your options carefully.
@R4Arnys Hi Bob and welcome to SF
The Connexion article to which you link to explains about the 3916 (Foreign Bank Accounts) Form and has nothing to do with declaring pensions.
Private Pensions are declarable and the way to do so is set out in the Tax 2021 topic which you can reach here.
As far as I understand ( and of course I may have got this wrong) you do not need to declare a private pension pot until you do something with it - annuity or drawdown or whatever, at which point it becomes of interest to the government. I have an L&G one as well - it has sat there for years not doing anything and at some point I shall have to cash it in or whatever. It doesn’t earn me interest, so it isn’t declareable that way. When we do decide to do something with it, it will presumably become income of a sort (or possibly even capital gain?)
Yes - I have experience of this.
Like Bob I had several small private pension pots. I decided they amounted to too little to put into an annuity - and mindful of the points above about the poor rates on offer, etc - I transferred them all into a drawdown arrangement (with Hargreaves Lansdown). No tax implication in either the UK or France - but then I did indeed draw down some funds when I had cancer and had to stop work for a long while, and this was indeed treated as income in France.
If you can survive on other income without the regular payments of an annuity, I would certainly consider a drawdown. It sits there, and you can move some into investments to grow it a bit, but you can call on it if you need some extra cash - very quickly if you don’t put all of it into investments.
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Thank you Geoff. Sounds like a very good idea to me and I much appreciate your information on the subject!
Thanks. I think you are probably right. That’s a decision for next year. At the moment I’m just trying to establish if I have to declare private pension accounts on the 3916 annex of bank accounts held abroad as I don’t want to be fined 1500€ for each one if I don’t.
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That is my question - do you have to declare the private pension accounts on the 3916 annex. The Conexxion article says No. I don’t want to be fined for not declaring them. And if they are to be declared then what as? bank account->other or Assurance Vie?
I appreciate your time in replying and your solution looks promising as I don’t need the money just yet (fortuneately). I still would like to be sure that I don’t have to list the wretched things on the 3916 annex.
Private pensions no but an Assurance Vie yes imo. If uncertain, list them or use the facility in the return to ask the fisc the question. The issue hinges on what is regarded as an Assurance Vie which is a very French financial vehicle and to my knowledge not normally a UK feature.
reference Please be aware that I am not a financial expert so you may need to take independent financial advice about this if you remain uncertain.
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Your answer concurs with what I thought up until this year when the seeds of doubt were sown in my mind and I read of all the scare stories about not declaring accounts, even Paypal. Thanks.
Thanks, I’ve already received two letters saying that I can’t buy an annuity with them.
(Even though when I took out the contract, this is what I would have had to do!)
I’ve got to the final page of the 2021 form where I should sign and I haven’t yet come across anywhere where I can ask the Fisc a question (or even add an explanatory note).
Am I missing something?
By the way I know that a private pension is not strictly tha same as an Assurance Vie as such but there are only Bank accounts, Digital accounts or Foreign Assurance Vies to choose from if I need to declare my private pension accounts.
I think there is a separate section on the site where you can send messages to ask questions - at least that is what I did recently - it’s not on the form itself.
I think Canada Life were one of the few that do
With the caveat that I don’t have to fill out French tax returns…
Surely, even though it is not declarable as income it is an asset which needs to be declared (given that France has a wealth tax levied on worldwide assets).
You only declare wealth after being resident more than 5 years and if you have more than 1.3million € in property. Investments don’t count anymore.
Yeah, I don’t think many of us will actually be too worried about the wealth tax. 
Sounds like the asset value has been inflation adjusted - it was 900 and something k when I last bothered to check.
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Deleted - misunderstood…
Thought Paul was so casual about his assets that when he last looked they were over 900k but he isn’t that bothered 