Overseas Pension Scheme
“People who have worked in UK are eligible for pension under HMRC (Her Majesty’s Revenues & Customs) guidelines. This is payable to them at the time of their retirement, which is around 60 years. However, there is a caveat. They can drawdown 30% as the lumpsum and rest is to be taken as the annuity.
Now, there are cases where, say for example, an Indian who worked in UK and has now relocated over of the country wants to transfer the UK pension outside the UK jurisdiction. This corpus technically gets transferred under QROPS ( Qualifying Recognised Overseas Pension Scheme); which are schemes which are qualified to receive the UK pension transfer funds. These, schemes have to follow the same guidelines as that of UK Pension under HMRC. This also includes for those, who have moved put of UK much before there retirement date.
Of recently, there have been developments whereby, the restrictions for withdrawal amount have been waived off for the retired persons. This means that 100% of the corpus can be withdrawan after retirement as per HMRC guidelines.
Only persons who are born or are an Indian citizen can transfer their annuity reserve funds to a Qualifying Recognized Overseas Pension Scheme (QROPS) registered in India. To be a qualifying person for QROPS, the scheme must be located outside the UK. Also, it should meet certain prerequisites indicated by the HMRC, UK. There are no taxation fees on the transfer made to QROPS if the person moving their UK Pension Benefits, stays in a similar nation where the QROPS is built up. “