Shockwaves from the delisting of Singapore QROPS during this year reverberated around the market for years to come.
The issue revolved around whether the Panthera ROSSIP was a QROPS or not.
More than 400 retirement savers who had invested in the ROSSIP were told by HMRC that the scheme was not a QROPS, so any cash transferred in was an unauthorised withdrawal from a pension.
As such, an unauthorised pension withdrawal attracts a tax penalty starting at 55% of the amount transferred.
Unwrapping the problems will take years and ends up in the High Court.
New pension opened every day
Meanwhile, during 2008, the rate of new QROPS opening slowed, but on average one opened nearly every day.
The number of QROPS worldwide rose to 1,503 from 1,153 a year earlier.
Ireland still led the way with 404 pensions – up by almost a quarter from 314 in December 2007. Australia remained second ending the year with 396 QROPS, up 45% from 272 to 396 pensions by the end of the year.
The other financial centre in triple figures was Guernsey, increasing by 66% by adding 40 QROPS to make a total of 105 by the end of 2008.
Sri Lanka joins QROPS centres
Sri Lanka was the only new QROPS centre to open during the year, with just a single QROPS.
The top three financial centres had 60% of all listed QROPS.
Although HMRC publishes the QROPS List of pensions certifying that they meet the pension qualifying rules regularly, no data is issued about how many transfers or how much they are worth.
QROPS Year by Year Summary
We review and summarise the QROPS news for each year from the launch of QROPS to now. Click on the below links to read:
QROPS OFFSHORE PENSIONS AFTER 10 YEARS
QROPS 2006 – A-Day Launches New Offshore Pension
QROPS 2007 – A Year Of Explosive Growth
QROPS 2009 – Gibraltar Tax Problem Rocks Expats
QROPS 2010 – Singapore Legal Challenge Launched
QROPS 2011 – Rooting Out The Rogues
QROPS 2012 – Hundreds of Pensions Delisted
QROPS 2013 – HMRC Humiliated In High Court
QROPS 2014 – Flexible Access On the Way
QROPS 2015 – No One Foresaw The Pension Age Test
QROPS 2016 – The Story So Far… But Not The End
Further QROPS Information and Guidance
For more information about QROPS and the benefits it provides, download the iExpats QROPS Guide or complete the Get Advice form.