Gary C

I may be wrong but I would not think that Church tax is supplement levied on any of the taxes covered by the DTA. My understanding is that it is a tax in its own right, levied on the members of certain religions, to finance church expenditure on things like the construction and maintenance of church buildings, paying the clergy an so on. If a person is not affiliated to any of the religions to which the tax applies, then they do not pay, church tax.

HMRC Admin 25, Sorry but I believe you may have misinterpreted Patrick's question, and I am not sure his question is completely clear anyway. We do not know whether he is talking about: * an occupational pension, that would be dealt with by Article 18, awarding taxing rights to the UK; * a government service pension, that would be dealt with by Article 19(2), awarding taxing rights to France; or * the French state pension, that be dealt with by Article 23(1), awarding taxing rights to the UK. Patrick, perhaps you can confirm the nature of your parents' various pensions - each one has to be considered on its own merits.

The contributions are not treated as paid in the other county but that fact that you have contributed means that the year can help you get past the required 10 years in the UK. If you have only 5 UK years and 20 NZ years, you would still only get 5 years' worth of UK pension. NZ would do a similar calculation using their rules, so your 5 UK years would help satisfy any NZ years' requirements but your NZ pension would still be based on your 20 NZ years

Equally, if the person has previously worked in the EU or a handful of other countries with which the UK has a social security agreement, then contribution years in those other countries may be added to the UK qualifying years to get past the required 10 years. A UK pension would then be payable based on the actual number of UK years. The International Pension Centre should explain this aspect too. The broad expectation is that person would get a separate pension from each country based on their actual contribution periods in that country.

fluffymorson Middleton I wonder whether 2 issues are being conflated here. I may be wrong but I do not believe there is a mechanism for social security contributions paid in NZ to be treated as paid in the UK. However, there is a social security agreement between the 2 countries that seems to work in a similar way to the agreement between the UK and the EU for those covered by the EU Withdrawal Agreement. i.e. if you do not have the minimum 10 UK NI years to qualify for a UK state pension, years contributed in NZ can be added to your UK years to help you achieve that requirement. Your UK pension would then be based on your actual UK years, even though that is fewer than 10. If you already have 10 UK years then aggregation of your UK and NZ years would have no impact on your UK pension. Similarly, your UK years can help you reach similar qualifying criteria in NZ. You can of course pay voluntary UK NIC to fill those gaps in your UK record if doing so would actually increase your UK pension forecast but you would need to speak with DWP Future Pension Centre to establish where you stand on that.

My guess would be that as a former teacher, your "starting amount" on transition from the old state pension to the new on 6 April 2016, would, in today's terms, be £156.20 per week (the old basic state pension maximum). For any year from 2016/17 onwards that is "full" or qualifying though payment of NIC or obtaining a credit for the year, you add £5.82 per week (£302.64 per year) to your starting amount until you reach the max. Based on the numbers you post, you are £40.78 short of the maximum. Buying 7 years would add 7 x £5.82 = £40.74 per week taking you to £203.81 per week. Paying a full year to add the final 4p per week would not appear to be a good idea. It is not clear why you mention 6 years as that would add £34.92 to your current forecast. Either way, you'll need to talk with the Future Pension Centre in DWP to confirm which years will improve your forecast and then with HMRC to organise payment.

I am not sure that will help much. We went down that route and got only the weekly amount clarified and the number of full weeks. When we spoke to them they simply missed the point and talked about how many full 4-weekly payment fell in their payment periods that do not coincide with the tax year and finally tried to say how many of those weeks fall to be taxed in the year, getting that part 100% wrong. When we spoke with the SA team they too could not understand the 1 to 6 days entitlement in the first week and ultimately said that if we wanted to put a higher figure on the tax return then that is fine with them. Clearly, since the new state pension was introduced and the first and last weeks of a person's pension is apportioned to days, the link between DWP and HMRC is not working properly leaving people who want to "do the right thing" in a quandary and ultimately having to put a figure on their return that even HMRC cannot confirm is correct. I think this needs to be escalated to your policy team.

Hi sirdmark2014, Do you have any UK income at all? If not, then the tax return route may not work anyway as it would be odd to send a return with £0 for all taxable income options. Also, your German state pension is not taxable in the UK either way and does not feature, as such, on the tax return, other than a note in the "other information" box to say you have it and that it is taxable only in Germany under the double tax treaty. Once you are in Self Assessment, you would be required to submit a tax return each year until HMRC agrees to take you out of SA so would have to comply with the filing deadline. But, as the issue you have is going to arise every year (because Germany requires confirmation each year of your taxable UK income that is not subject the Einkommensteuer in Germany) the delays in getting the form stamped, or the workaround of submitting a tax return, will arise every year from now on, or at least until you can no longer make the election because either your German-source income is less than 90% of your worldwide income, OR your UK income exceeds the German Grundfreibetrag. The whole election thing is really just a massive tax "fiction" because you are treated as though you are resident in Germany, and therefore fall under unlimited liability taxation, but you are, as a matter of fact, not resident, so Germany can only tax income arising in Germany - all quite odd. But it does, of course, open access to the Grundfreibetrag and other allowances but you must also inform Germany of your UK income as that will be subject to Progressionsvorbehalt. Even so, you are likely to have a lower tax burden than you would have if you did not make this election... In addition to following the advice from HMRC to chase for a reply, I would be minded to write to your Finanzamt (presumably Neubrandenburg RiA) explaining that the form is stuck with HMRC and they are currently suggesting you will get your stamped form back in January, so the matter is out of your hands. You could also give details of the amounts that will be on the form when you get it to demonstrate that you are clearly within the scope of the election and that little or no German tax will arise as a result etc etc. Neubrandenburg FA was content with that approach for the first year we sent the form, when HMRC took 9 months or so to deal with it... Hope this helps.

HMRC Admin 19 Doesn't that rather depend on where that other country is? For instance, if the other country is Germany, then under the DTA he state pension remains taxable only in the UK. That may be the exception that proves the rule but an exception it certainly is.

We have encountered the same lengthy delays when asking HMRC to certify the Non-EU/EEA form, and while Neubrandenburg Finanzamt has always been very understanding of those delays (they probably suffer similar excessive workloads from time-to-time), it does get very uncomfortable if and when they start chasing you for a response, not least because you are then in potential interest and penalty through no fault of your own. In the end we resorted to completing a self-assessment tax return, even though it wasn't really needed. It is very quick to do online, and you can then send a copy of the tax statement that drops out at the end to the Finanzamt. They were happy with that.