As HMRC approved Scheme Administrators for SMSF’s capable of receiving UK pension transfers, QROPS funds is one of our specialties. Apart from considerable expertise, driven by our Head of Technical, Debbie Thomas LLB, we enjoy some additional process enhancements due to our approved status.
Applicants for SMSF QROPS approval must generally post the application, along with the deed, to HMRC. We merely email the application. HMRC provide a maximum 10-day processing time from receipt of applications before approving, or rejecting, an SMSF for UK Pension transfer purposes. This also applies to us, but our time frame is generally 2 days which, when combined with our ability to use email and our pre-approved deed wording, provides a much faster service.
As Scheme Administrators we also have a designated HMRC case officer which further increases our ability to deal with issues on an ongoing basis.
Ongoing compliance with HMRC’s reporting regime is critical but can be problematic as rule changes are usually NOT grandfathered and will be effective from the day of announcement. We receive weekly HMRC regulation updates to ensure we remain proactive in this regard.
Lastly, due to our focus on proactive deed wordings, our QROPS deed does not suffer from the shortcomings inherent in some other deeds that have been developed for QROPS transfer purposes as their primary focus rather than their general usefulness. Our deed is written in plain English so trustees, already grappling with the complexities of the transfer process, will find they can, at least, more easily understand the rules of their SMSF.
We know that UK/Australian Law conflicts can be difficult to navigate so we have ensured that all parties are aware of the additional administrative steps involved whilst our processes ensure that we meet all HMRC due dates and requirements on an ongoing basis. Failure to do so may result in the SMSF’s ROPS status being revoked.
If you have clients in, or considering, UK pension approved SMSFs, we’d like to have a chat with you.
