QNUPS is one of the most popular and lucrative Offshore Pension Investment scheme, which provides UK citizens living abroad with IHT or Investment Tax exemption benefits. This Retirement scheme came into existence in February 2010 and put forward certain guidelines regarding Offshore Pension Investment schemes to be Tax-free. This concept made this overseas scheme hugely popular among Brits, because it gave them the opportunity to save as much as possible to gain maximum capital gains so that it can be transferred to the heirs.
Inheritance Tax or IHT planning is offered by QNUPS because it doesnt fall under the UK Tax jurisdiction. If you select proper jurisdiction, then you will not have to pay for investors estates or any kind of succession tax in the QNUPS based countries. It also doesnt abide by the DTA or the Double Taxation Agreement within the destination country and the UK. This makes these Retirement overseas schemes available in any country without any reporting back to HMRC, and this what makes it different from QROPS. This is the reason why most of the UK citizens who live abroad opt for this Retirement scheme.
QNUPS is selected by people because it is a confidential method of investing of the pension assets. This is because for the first five years no information about the investment of the wealth is reported to the HMRC.
Thus, HMRC remains completely in the dark when it comes to the investment of the pension funds of the individuals. But, in reality it is desirable that there should be DTAs between the destination countries and the UK, or at least TIEAs, which is also known as Tax Information Exchange Agreement, so this will allow the taxman to get all the information about the investments made by the clients and where there money is heading to.
Some of the popular destinations which have QNUPS operations are New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and certain other countries like Hong Kong, Malta, Gibraltar, etc. If you are residing in any of these QNUPS countries then it would be desirable to get all the information and the tax structures to get a perfect picture of this Retirement scheme. The most reliable source of getting this information is from the professional advisers who deal with these offshore schemes and you will also be able to get the latest developments of the rules and regulations.
