Gary C

HMRC Admins, I am confused. Robert S has indicated that he is not resident in the UK - he is resident and working in Germany, so tax resident there and taxed, as you would expect, by Germany on his German salary and other worldwide income, subject to the DTA between the UK and Germany. Surely, the only time he needs to even consider a UK tax return is if he has UK-source income that is not exempted by the DTA between the UK and Germany, e.g. UK property rental income. Are you and he talking at cross-purposes?

JanetTootill, I am a little confused. I searched BR1 and that relates to the old state pension for those reaching pension age before 6 April 2016. When I claimed my German pension a couple of years ago, DWP sent me (and others I know who have recently claimed their foreign pensions as UK residents) form CFN901 and routed that information to Germany (or whichever other EU country is relevant). You cannot download the CFN901. I think a call to DWP may be helpful to clarify the position for you. They will either say the BR1 can be used, or will pop a CFN901 in the post to you. It is not long - only about 8 pages of personal info and info about where you have worked and which bank account the pension should be paid into... I am not sure why you mention the non-EU/EEA form as you won't need that unless you are electing to be treated as if you were resident in Germany (a tax fiction) to give access to their personal allowance. You can only make that election if at least 90% of your income is taxable in Germany, or your income that is not taxable in Germany, i.e. everything other than your German pension, does not exceed the German personal allowance of 11,604€ for 2024. If you cannot make such election, you are taxed on every Cent under their limited liability rules. In the event you do need the certificate, you would send it to HMRC as it relates to your UK taxable income, not your pension as such. Hope this helps.

I assume DWP has sent you form CFN901 to complete to tell them about your non-UK pensions, so they can set the ball in motion. In theory it shouldn't take too long as they exchange all information electronically but DWP will need something like 6 to 8 weeks to get the process going and Germany may take about 3 or 4 months to their normal timetable. I applied for mine about 5 months before the start date, so it could be paid on time at the end of the first month (which is the first full month following your birthday as they do no apportion month 1). DRV will inform RiA and you will get a Tax Identification Number at some point from a central office but RiA will also give you a Steuernummer. I informed RiA as soon as I knew I would be getting the German pension, even though there isn't much to do until the end of the tax year in December. There isn't really any reason to delay and you can all of the forms about communicating by email, paying by direct debit and asking RiA to assess you absent tax returns all set-up before the end of the year. The RiA website has a lot of info and forms in English and that side of things ran quite smoothly. The DRV process shouldn't be too bad either, except they may well ask you for your post-17/pre-work education/training history to update that on your German records before doing the EU calculations to work out how much you will get.

Vinay6124/BarbaraS Scmidinger, I feel your pain and all I can suggest is you send a self assessment return voluntarily/unprompted to HMRC for the year in question, which is what we decided to do because of the unacceptable HMRC delays in dealing with a simple request to check, sign and date stamp a form required for a foreign tax authority. Our self assessment showed UK tax £0 as the income was covered by the personal allowance but the German tax office in Neubrandenburg (I assume that would be yours too) was then happy with a printout of the self assessment part (not the whole return) and we adopted this approach going forward, until we could no longer make the election to be subject to unlimited tax treatment... Not ideal but puts the control back in your hands.

HMRC Admin 25 - why are you pointing Vinay6124 at SA guidance? The form they are talking about is a form from and needed by the German tax office once it has been signed and stamped by HMRC. If the person is in SA and has completed a tax return they can send their self assessment to Germany in lieu of the form they are trying to get you to sign and stamp.

Hi Richard Storer, The legislation you asked for is S578 Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003, which states, "If section 577 applies, the taxable pension income for a tax year is the full amount of the pension, benefit or allowance accruing in that year irrespective of when any amount is actually paid." The State Pension is listed in S577, so S578 is applicable. Hope this helps.

Thank you, most helpful.

Perhaps this is a question that can only be answered by DWP. Normally, if a person is already claiming their state pension, any increase by reason of filling gaps in their NI record is payable only from the date payment is made. However, what is the position if they were unable to fill such gaps before claiming their pension because of your delays (as you mention above)@ Will the state pension be increased from the person's state pension age, or , if later, the date the CF83 form was submitted, rather than the actual date of payment of the voluntary NI (assuming payment is made within whatever time period you specify in your response to their CF83)?

This isn't an HMRC issue. A good place to start would be to contact the Department for Work and Pensions International Pensions Centre (details on GOV UK as I cannot post links). Generally you can submit a claim for your UK state pension no earlier than 4 months before your birthday but the IPC will explain things for you.

HMRC Admin 20, That is correct but those years do not have to be only UK years. Under the EU regulations on the coordination of social security systems, which continue to apply for those covered by the EU Withdrawal Agreement, xk5ukb473's Italian and UK years would be aggregated and if they then exceed 10, a UK pension based on their 8 years would be payable in addition to any Italian pension they may in due course be able to claim, applying the same aggregation regulations.