My partner worked for 18years for Iberia and 10 before that in industry.  Sadly she will lose nearly all the benefit if she doesn’t work or goes self employed as here pension will be based on the ultimate years of her potential working life (the last 15 I think).

One option is that she works for my UK company (2 people, nothing grand) and pays tax here.  I understand under EU rules that she can then transfer the benefits as a NI paying UK employee back to spain for pension assessment.  Anyone know how this works, if it works, etc. ...

Gracias Nigel

Dodgy!!!! Basically if she?s going to be in the UK for 183 days or more, in any one tax year, she will be deemed UK resident thus making her liable for UK taxation.

A think a bit more creative thinking is required here 😊

I think that I misunderstood you.  By ?here? you mean ?rain drenched England? as opposed to ?40+ degrees in the shade, Spain??

Yes here meaning rain drenched UK but at the mo bright sun and a barmy 22

Yes I want her to pay UK Tax & NI.  We will probably be living more than 183 days of the year in England for the next 5 to 10 years.  The problem is that in Spain she needs to work for a company if she is to get anything worthwhile and that is not an option.  She could work self employed in Spain but that leads to only a tiny pension - hell the spanish government wouldn’t want anyone expanding the economy and creating jobs now would it!!

I understand that if you work over the years in different EU states you can have your pension assessed by the state of residence based on the accumulated contributions.

I know this to exist and in the better run parts of the EU I have been given evidence of it in practise.  But Spain? I’m beginning to lose all confidence. 

Tx for your reply - love the monkey

Since you?ve had no reply, let me tell you what I understand about this.  The transference of pension benefits between EU member states works in a strange manner.  It?s probably designed like this to prevent people from transferring their pensions out of the UK.  You would need to have someone in Spain (probably Seguridad Social) complete form APSS 251.  As you would expect this form is only available in English and I suspect that if you were to show this to anyone in ?el Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales? it would probably end up in the bin.

Anyway you?ll find the form at:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/pensionschemes/apss251.pdf

There are also some notes that go along with this and they are at:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/pensionschemes/apss251-notes.pdf

Effectively Spain have to state that their pension scheme is a recognized overseas pension scheme.

You?ll probably want to do this when you move back to Spain, I guess.

Good luck

Don Carlos

Don Carlos many thanks for that but I do not believe it is what I’m looking for.  Pilar does not have a company or private pension scheme.  It is the standard government contributions I’m interested in.

I think I will simply let Pilar work in the UK and pay Tax & NI here.  On a minimum wage it will not be much but it will meet contribution needs.  Then when she is 60 we will appeal to the UK system based on the recent x years in the UK and a previous 28 years in Spain.  I suspect until it is tested no-one will know.  And at the end of the day we have and will appreciate the buying power of the pound in Spain so c’est la vie.

Clearly as a Brit I will get my state pension paid directly in Spain if that is where I will be resident.  If we still are semi resident in England at the time it will be interesting to see what happens regarding married persons pension and the such like.

Not sure whether I should be pro or anti Europe anymore

OK, I understand now.  The state pensions are not ?transferable? as such.  But in the EU she won?t lose out.  Spain will sum the years that she?s been contributing in the UK to those that she has already accumulated in Spain.  If you stay in the UK, then the HMRC would do the same.  Effectively she would receive two pensions; one from the UK and the other from Spain; each country providing proportional amount.

DC that’s it - thankyou.  So the problem is if Spain assess on the last 15 years she gets next to nothing as her Spanish income will have been nothing.  But if she gets a bit from the UK that will help - and certainly if she outlives me (a very likely event based on the stats).

The difference in retirement ages for woman of course will also come into play.  I will dig around and put up anything I find here in case it helps anyone.  Thanks again my friend - Enjoy

Tut tut.  I see no monkey.
A gorilla is an ape.  Next you’ll be telling me that there are less people.

pedantically yours,