Sovereign Group

Sovereign’s core business is setting up and managing companies, trusts and other structures to meet the specific personal or business needs of our clients. Typically these needs would include tax planning, wealth protection, foreign property ownership and facilitating cross-border business.

They currently manage over 7,000 structures for a wide variety of clients worldwide. They advise governments, publicly quoted companies and professional law and accountancy firms but the majority of their clients are individuals, expatriates, entrepreneurs, freelance consultants, private investors, or wealthy persons and their families.

They have also developed a wide range of supporting services embracing asset management, corporate finance and fund raising, specialist tax advice, ship and yacht registration, credit cards, as well as trademark and intellectual property registration and protection. 

The first Sovereign office opened in Gibraltar in 1987 and they now have offices or agents in all the major international finance centres. Not all the jurisdictions in which they operate require or allow licences but wherever possible they have applied for, and been granted, the appropriate authorisation.

I shall be happy to help you with an introduction to the Group; just Contact Me with more details.

Sovereign Management Services Pte Ltd
112 Robinson Road, #12-01
Singapore 068902 

Telephone: +65 6222 3209
Fax: +65 6226 3795

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Latest Pensions and Trust News

2017 Budget: Update following Overseas Transfer Charge (9/3/17)

Yesterday’s Spring Budget saw Chancellor Phillip Hammond introduce a 25% tax charge on transfers of UK registered pension schemes to QROPS where the transfer is requested on or after 9^th March 2017. The new taxing provisions take full effect from 6^th April 2017.

 The Overseas Transfer Charge will not apply where at least one of the following five exemptions applies: –

1. Both the member and the QROPS are in the same country after the transfer
2. The QROPS is based in the EEA (an EU Member State, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein) and the member is resident in another EEA country after the transfer (Gibraltar and Malta are both in the EEA)
3. The QROPS is an occupational pension scheme sponsored by the member’s employer
4. The QROPS is an overseas public service pension scheme and the member is employed by one of the employers participating in the scheme
5. The QROPS is a pension scheme established by an international organisation to provide benefits in respect of past service and the member is employed by that international organisation.

The proposals also state that: –

• The tax charge will apply to a tax-free transfer if, within five tax years, an individual becomes resident in another country so that the exemptions would not have applied to the transfer.
• If already paid, the overseas transfer charge will be refunded if the individual made a taxable transfer and within five tax years one of the exemptions applies to the transfer.
• Payments out of funds transferred to a QROPS on or after 6 April 2017 will be within the scope of the new tax charge for five tax years after the date of transfer, regardless of where the individual is resident.

What counts as a transfer request prior to 9^th March 2017?

According to HMRC’s guidance:

“In this context, a transfer has been requested when you have made a substantive request to the scheme administrator of your registered pension scheme on which they are required to take action in relation to the transfer. This means that you have given the scheme administrator an instruction to transfer £X or X% of your pension funds to a named overseas pension scheme. A casual enquiry is not a transfer request”.

Can I change which QROPS I transfer to?

Where a transfer request has been lodged prior to 9^th March 2017, any request to direct the monies to a different QROPS after this date will be considered a post 9^th March request and bring the transfer back within the scope of the tax charge.

Are onward transfers from a QROPS subject to the Overseas Transfer Charge?

Yes, but only where the original request to transfer the UK registered pension scheme to the QROPS occurred after 9^th March 2017. In this instance, any onward transfers from the QROPS will be subject to the charge (and benefit from any exemptions to the charge if applicable) for a further 5 full tax years from the date of the original transfer to the QROPS.

Please feel free to contact me to talk about your QROPS transfer.

SOVEREIGN GROUP REPORT

Issue 50 – JANUARY 2018

• Chairman’s Message, 30^th Anniversary
• Latest news from Europe, USA & Caribbean, Middle East & Asia
• Latest Legal and Financial News
• Retirement Planning
• Common Reporting Standards (CRS) Feature
• The Sovereign Art Foundation

You can read the full report online here.

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