Terry Baucher of Baucher Consulting is a well-regarded tax specialist, whom we regularly recommend to clients. In this guest blog, Terry shares some insights, and highlights a few of the important differences between the tax regimes in the UK and NZ.

First, and this is not always as obvious as you might think, New Zealand’s tax system is very different from that of the UK. For starters, there is no tax-free personal allowance, so every dollar of income is taxed. 

Type "UK pension to NZ" (or similar) into any search engine, and you're presented with numerous companies extolling the various benefits of transferring your British pension to a New Zealand Qualifying Recognised Overseas Pension Scheme (QROPS).

Some of these organisations have "QROPS" or "transfer" as part of their name or may even be promoting their own QROPS product, so you could be forgiven for thinking that transferring to a QROPS is the only viable option.

This is categorically NOT the case!

In the weeks following 2016's Brexit vote, Immigration NZ received 10,600+ registrations of interest from Brits. That's more than double the figure for the same period in 2015. Whilst not all of these registrations have actually eventuated, the stream of skilled British immigrants moving to New Zealand remains strong and steady.

​In 2017, net migration to NZ hit an all time high of 72,000, and Brits accounted for nearly 10% of this. In fact, the UK (6,728) only comes behind China (10,351) and India (7,409) in terms of migrant numbers, and is still ahead of South Africa, the Philippines, France and Germany.

We speak frequently about the moving goalposts of UK and NZ pension legislation and how these might affect transfer options for NZ residents, and 2017 has been no exception.

For the first time in some years, there was a bit of potentially good news for investors regarding access to their funds! Here's a quick recap of the year's significant updates – and a few words of caution about how some members of the global financial services industry appear to be changing their tactics.

In early September, British Airways announced plans to close one of its final salary pension schemes (also known as defined benefits (DB) pension schemes). The decision was taken after the pension's deficit reached £3.7 billion in March – despite the company having ploughed £3.5 billion into the scheme since 2003.

British Airways is not an isolated case.

The Financial Times reports that UK pension scam losses hit a record high in March. This is based on figures released by City of London police which show that 24 victims lost £8.6 million. The FT goes on to say that more than £42 million has been lost to "pension liberation fraud" since April 2014. You can read the complete article by Jospehine Cumbo here.

If you're thinking of investigating your UK pension transfer options, you'll want to know that you're dealing with a legitimate and qualified financial adviser. The following 8 questions may help when you're deciding with which firm you'd prefer to work.

​Why has the Chancellor introduced this policy?

This new legislation is aimed primarily at individuals who retire in one country, but "park" their pension in a more tax-friendly location, such as an offshore tax haven. The UK Treasury commented, "This charge is targeted at those seeking to reduce the tax payable by moving their pension wealth to another jurisdiction."