Guernsey QROPS will benefit from full flexibility following a legislative change that will enable policyholders locked into schemes on the island to transfer funds into other jurisdictions.
The crown dependency’s deputy treasury minister, Jan Kuttelwascher, said its treasury and resources department intends to propose an amendment to income tax law allowing inward transfers to a Qualifying Recognised Overseas Pension Scheme (QROPS) the same flexibility as the jurisdiction from which the funds originate.
The will ensure Guernsey’s compatibility with the full QROPS flexibility announced by the UK’s HM Revenue & Customs in December last year.
“Such a change would enable members in a Guernsey pension scheme that has QROPS status access to the same pension flexibility offered by the UK, and would extend both to transfers already made and to future transfers into a Guernsey personal pension scheme,” said Kuttelwascher.
Stephen Ainsworth, president of Guernsey’s Association of Pension Providers, said the news will remove Guernsey policyholders’ fears that they would not be granted full flexibility because of the restriction on transfers to QROPS with more flexible payment arrangements.
“We learned last December that pension flexibility would be available to QROPS, and now Guernsey has confirmed that local rules will be relaxed to enable this flexibility to be applied to QROPS transfers to Guernsey schemes in the same way as it will be applied in the UK,” he said.
He added that if a policyholder did still want to transfer to a QROPS scheme in another jurisdiction, “they should now be able to do so”. Read more
