Investor Retirement Visa case study

“Prism Xpat are a very powerful team”
Dr Andy Lewis*

Emigrating with an Investor Retirement Visa

Andy and Rachel Lewis emigrated to Queensland, Australia, in autumn 2008. Andy was a senior employee in a major public sector organisation and had been offered an Investor Retirement Visa.

They had already spoken to an Australian bank about transferring their pension. But Andy was advised by another senior colleague to speak to Prism Xpat. “We got advice from Prism Xpat that we didn’t get anywhere else,” Andy said. “We were totally unaware of the huge potential tax savings available.”

 

Transferring a public sector pension to Australia

Prism Xpat liaised with the scheme to transfer Andy’s pension. Public sector schemes have numerous complex rules on pension transfers, which – it turned out – the schemes’ administrators themselves don’t always interpret correctly. Prism Xpat carefully followed their guidance on pension transfers, only to find that they refused to authorise the transfer.

On Andy’s authority, Prism Xpat conducted a thorough investigation into the scheme’s rules. It was finally agreed by the administrators that they hadn’t applied their own national rules correctly and that recent changes to those rules meant a transfer was in fact permitted. If it weren’t for Prism Xpat, the Lewis family would have paid over £150,000 in tax on their retirement income.

“We felt very secure with [Prism Xpat] being a
phone call away. I wanted a person I can talk to regularly.”
Rachel Lewis

 

Tax efficiencies in the UK and Australia

Andy and Rachel’s pension fund was too large to move to Australia in one go. So Prism Xpat maximised their tax efficiency by managing their funds across both the UK and Australia. This kept all transfers within Australia’s limits and even allowed Andy to draw a pension in both countries. As Andy says, “It’s now like a complete tax haven – extraordinary!”

 

To discuss how Prism Xpat can help you, please get in touch or book a meeting with one of our specialist advisors.

 

_{* To protect our client’s identity, we have changed the names used in the case study above.}