Launched on 19 January 2018, the petition has six months to garner 10,000 signatures to force the UK Government to respond and 100,000 signatures to get the issue debated in parliament.
As of Friday 9 March, it has just 427 signatories.
This does represent a sharp uptick from the 258 signatures the petition reportedly had on 7 March – but still falls far short of the targets.
The petition closes on 19 July 2018 and still needs more than 9,500 signatures to get a government response.
Even if the issue is debated by MPs, there is also no guarantee that the levy would be scrapped.
‘Unfair to thousands’
Available at petition.parliament.uk, the petition states that expats have to pay the charge on moving pensions from the UK to a Qrops or between Qrops unless they live in Europe or one of 13 countries outside Europe that have such schemes.
William Wilson, who created the petition, wrote that it “is unfair to the thousands who cannot access a Qrops pension where they live”.
“The charge is unreasonable as the rules punish Qrops members for financial planning when savers with other pensions, like self-invested personal pensions (Sipps), can live in the same place as a Qrops saver and suffer no transfer charge on moving their fund.”
No further details are currently available about Wilson or what prompted him to launch the petition, nearly a year after the charge was first announced.
Qrops shock
The 25% levy on Qrops transfers to non-European Economic Area (EEA) countries was announced at the March 2017 Spring Budget.
Industry had no notice that the charge was to be implemented, let alone with immediate effect.
The only exception is if the pension is transferred to a non-EEA country in which the owner subsequently lives for at least five years, for example Australia.
However, if the person moves to another non-EEA country before the five years has lapsed, say the Philippines, the charge would be applied retroactively.
Bethell Codrington says:
The OTC is likely to be extended to EEA when UK finally BREXITs (2019), so the idea that UK Government might scrap it is fanciful at best.