I understand that once in possession of S1 and having fed that through the French system one does not pay social charges on pension income. Not sure if the benefit of S1 includes all member of the PACS (waiting for answer from Impots, will post here if/when I get a reply).
Great info about the “Competant Authority” thanks for that, I think it was @George1
It is a bit worrying as a wrong move is very expensive and presumably irretrievable (except maybe partially via Dual Tax Agreement?). The Financial Advisor I have been discussing with, back up by a French Tax advisor, has recommended the scheme I mentioned, i.e. transfer in the UK to a SIPP, then a small token cash transfer to France, after which I claim an NT tax code. Then the full balance of the SIPP is withdrawn and transferred to France, to be taxed at the forfeit rate (and CSG as well since I am in the French “sécu”).
Agreed, needs to be in writing!
Allen, it’s a pleasure. I hope the information about competent authorities might also be helpful to any others who are facing resistance from the French tax office to stamping their tax treaty forms.
I am proposing to take the entire remaining balance of my DC plan as a lump sum (having taken the UK tax free portion last year when UK resident) now that I’m a French tax resident. I would hope to benefit from the 7.5% rate, since as far as France is concerned, the single lump sum will be the entire amount received as a resident here . I would also hope not to pay social charges as I’m privately insured for medical and (intentionally) am not in Assurance Maladie or any other French social security scheme, principally for this reason.
My DC plan has also recovered from a) the Covid crash and (so far!) b) the crash caused by Mad Vlad’s invasion.
People talking about withdrawing the whole of a SIPP to transfer to France need to be very careful. There is a lower limit for a SIPP pension where the entire pot can be cashed in without penalty, but it’s very low (a few thousand I think, but not sure). In all other cases, you can take up to 25% of your pot tax free in the UK. If you withdraw more than the 25%, then HMRC will tax you on that amount at your last marginal rate in the UK (40% for me). The fact you aren’t resident in the UK makes no difference to HMRC, they will instruct your provider to deduct this amount before paying you. You can then get a tax credit that will allow you to avoid paying tax on it in France, but there is no way of avoiding the large cut that HMRC will take.
Edit: I said no way of avoiding the large cut that HMRC will take, but of course there is, and it’s called QROPS where you would have to transfer your pension into a HMRC approved overseas pension. After it has been in the QROPS for (I think) 10 years then HMRC will no longer be able to make a charge on the money, so you could cash in the QROPS at that stage with no penalty from HMRC.
P.S This is in no way to be construed as financial advice, it’s what I’ve gleaned doing my own research and unless things have changed since late 2019, it’s what I understand to be the case. If you have an advisor saying differently, get a cast iron guarantee from them … if such a thing exists.
it’s 55% you will be docked, actually, I think. It counts as an “unauthorised withdrawal”, I believe.
HMRC does publish a list of counries and providers. But I do recall seeing a case where someone used a scheme on the list and HMRC said the fact that a scheme was on the list (ie their own list) did not necessarily mean they approved it.
For some reason though I thought all EU contries were was still OK and would not lead to a transfer being counted as an unauthorised withdrawal? But I have not been paying attention to UK budget announcements much.
There was a discussion on another thread here in the past 3 months or so, it seemed clear you could actually leave it in the UK market, just aa a foreign resident no longer taxed as a UK resident, if you wanted to, and pay French tax according to what you do with it.
People do fall foul of this, through no fault of thier own. The fact it’s on the list is no guarantee. The issues start when either local law changes, or the provider changes it’s conditions, making the scheme no longer fit in with HMRC conditions. AFAIU, the law changed in France at some point, making all the existing French QROPS schemes invalid as far as HMRC were concerned.
I don’t think the 55% charge for unauthorised withdrawal comes into play for withdrawing a whole pot as withdrawing the whole pot, with certain caveats, is permissable under the rules. HMRC will still take their cut however, at your last marginal tax rate.
In the next few years I plan to draw my private pension with Standard Life. I am Tax resident in France and understand Standard Life will only pay out the full amount i.e. no annuity and no drawdown options.
I have a Standard Life personal pension too, so alerted by this thread (and thank you to all) I phoned them to check my situation and I am in the same boat. That is, no annuity and no flexible drawdown options. My only options are 100% drawdown or transfer to another pension provider.
I’m considering the 100% drawdown option and the SL advisor told me that HMRC will take a large % (emergency rate) on 75% of the amount but not to worry as it can ALL be claimed back as I am French resident.
The discussions in this thread have confused me a little tbh (it got a little too complex for my simple brain!) so can I just confirm that what SL said is correct - all tax deducted by HMRC can be claimed back and will be repaid. I’m not concerned about how long that might take, only that it does happen. I have an appointment with my tax office here to find out how to handle the tax and social charges here - that actually looks pretty straightforward tbh.
I’m not overly interested in transferring to another pension (QROPS or otherwise) but I will have a little look at the options available to me there.
It’s true that HMRC will take a large chunk of emergency tax whatever you do if you take the whole pot. You can then fill in a France Form Individual DT to make them aware that you’re a French taxpayer. What happens after that is what is confusing. There is a threshold for the size of the pension (I think its £30,000 but don’t quote me on that) where if it’s less than that, you can take the whole pot without HMRC being able to tax it, and HMRC would refund the amount taken from you. Above that amount, my research suggested that HMRC would always tax you at your last marginal tax rate in the UK, i.e they would reserve that amount and pay you the difference back.
If anyone has any information that this is wrong, then please let me know.
Thank you for your ‘to the point’ reply - it got to the nub of my question perfectly. Sounds like that threshold value is what I need to know, plus also the rules around that “can” decision. I’ll get to searching.
I do know about this.
What you’re talking about is the “small pots” regime.
The threshold for no tax on withdrawal is in fact £10,000. But that must be the entire value of the pot. Not the remaining value as I understand it, but the max value it had. So you can see you might need to create a new, separate pot to avoid any confusion. You have to take the entire pot in one withdrawal. Whether it reaches the £10k max allowed for it to count as a small pot, or if it’s less thsn £10k.
You can make 3 small pots withdrawals in your life. Hence totalling up to £30,000. If your pots didn’t total £30k but you did 3 small pots withdrawals, tough.
I have seen a financial adviser comment it’s safest (presumably to avoid any quirks in any provider’s administration lumping together at the back end leading to HMRC potentially not accepting each £10k as a small pot), that it’s best to put each small pot with a different provider. However I do know as one instance, Hargreaves Lansdown, who I think might manage 50% of the SIPPS in the UK,? say they cast iron can take £30k and ensure it’s 3*£10k pots which they absolutely keep separate so HMRC will view each as a separate “small pot”. So you could withdraw each taxfree (so far as the UK is concerned). I would trust HL on this because…well… they are HL. Not so much if it was someone else.
I understand no emergency tax either - remind your provider again when uou wjthdraw each pot, you are relying on the “small pots regime” to ensure it’s handled as you would expect. In fact I’d get it all confirmed on the transfer in! to avoid surprises.
I am guessing to use the small pots regime you might have to still be a UK taxpayer? And I’d assume if you’re a French taxpayer then you have to pay attention to French tax rules, regardless of whatever the UK might let you do. A couple can withdraw £60,000 taxfree using this… this is one of the things a financial adviser can earn his fee by telling you
At first reading, it appears to be £30,000 for ALL of your private pensions. So I guess if you have more than one personal pension (as I do) then you have to add them all up to determine the total pot value.
In fact I’d recommend Hargreaves. Their competence level relative to others, seems excellent. I used to be a bit wary, despite their competence and big name, when they had exit fees I didn’t like but I gather they did away with those some time ago.
Thanks Karen. I don’t know if it’s ‘small pot’ or ‘trivial commutation’ It’s the latter that talks about the £30,000 total pot thing. My head hurts. Already. 
see above on the “small pots” regime which is what you need. It’s the £10k max pot value per pot that matters, to use the small pots regime and get taxfree withdrawals.
For other purposes the Revenue also talks about a “trivial commutation” value which comes up in a few different circumstances and just happens to be £30k. So for instance in theory (though often blocked these days by providers (sending “ceding” , or receiving) to cover their s$$), a Defined Benefit pension could be transferred without “advice”, if it was £30k or less. And in some circumstances where not normally allowed, encashment of a fund is allowed if it’s under £30k as it’s viewed as a ‘trivial commutation’ (ie too small to bother with I suppose, so let the person cash it or whatever).
But to qualify for the small pots regime and thus to withdraw all of each of 3 pots each of up to £10k in 3 withdrawals (max) in a lifetime it is absolutely essential that it’s 3 pots of up to £10k each and not one of £30k and not any that are even 1p over £10k.
Note these are current tax rules and we have a very hungry Chancellor…
see below. or above, as it will probably end up being positioned. This is cast iron.
I’m sure it is. Sadly I don’t understand it
I have 2 personal pensions. One with Standard Life and one with Fidelity. The SL pension is under £30k, the Fidelity one is significantly more. I simply want to take 100% of the SL pension, rather than transfer it, since there’s little else I can do. I would just like to understand the rules regarding UK taxation. I’m not looking to be clever, just withdraw the money and pay whatever tax is due on it - here and/or in France. It seems I need a degree in high finance to do that! 
I would agree completely with what @KarenLot says above. Dealing with pensions and especially pension lump sums is complicated and you need good financial advice. Some people look on the HMRC website and see pages like this
They read this and assume that this will allow them to take a lump sum without paying any tax in the UK. After all, it says
If you’re not a UK resident, you don’t usually pay UK tax on your pension. But you might have to pay tax in the country you live in
This however only applies to pension income and not a lump sum withdrawal. Making this mistake will be very expensive.
Talk to Hargreaves. They will be able to accept a transfer in from SL of £30k, split it into pots of max £10k each, then you withdraw each pot in its entirety, under the small pots regime taxfree.
Chat it all through when you call them, then if you’re happy open a Hargreaves account online. The people I know who’ve done it have been UK residents at the time btw. SL will give you forms to fill in, fill them in as far as you can and Hargreaves will do the rest.
Just to be very clear, if you take it from SL rather than transferring it, then standard (non-small pots) regime will apply and you will definitely be charged emergency tax on first withdrawal (or only withdrawal) upfront.
Depending on which country or countries you are taxable in, ie your own situation, it’s possible that after filling out forms and reclaiming overpaid tax, you could end up paying the same anount of tax wherever you are taxed, if you did it direct with SL as if you did small pots.
But I do know that if you are a UK taxpayer, the small pots regime can be used to give a person £30k total withdrawals taxfree from UK tax, in their lifetime. So £60k for a couple.
If you have additional tax exposure in other countries such as France, you may be paying tax in France. So lots of people would do their small pots withdrawals in a calendar year before they become resident in France and thus liable to French tax.
If you are not a resident of the UK then it seems a lot of providers won’t take you as a customer so logistics could be difficult to get things done. A good financial adviser can help you navigate lots of issues but there is a cost and many won’t deal with small sums and you might find fees high relative to the sum.