Extract of a letter sent to Mr. Timms MP Financial Secretary to the Treasury

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Mr. Stephen Timms, Financial Secretary to the Treasury,
HM Treasury,
1, Horse Guards Road, London,
SW1A 2HQ
"..............
Three teachers all with identical teaching careers (except as described below) and all with the same superannuation payments to the same teachers’ superannuation scheme.
a/. A British citizen, taught in a local authority school
b/. A British citizen, taught in a private school.
c/. A French citizen, taught in a local authority school.

All three retire to France. All require home-help support (this attracts a 50% rebate of the costs against tax in France).

The pensions of b/. and c/. are taxed in France.
The pension of a/. is required to be taxed in the UK as his service is deemed to be ‘to the British Government or local government’ – These are the rules of the Double Taxation Convention between Britain and France.

The taxation burden of a/. is considerably greater than b/. or c/. largely, though not entirely, because the rebates on tax which accrue to the costs of the home help are not available to a/. since his tax is paid to the UK.

------------------
A. I taught 8 years in the private sector and 24 years in the ’state’ sector. Nevertheless all 100% of my pension is taxed in the UK.

Question. Will you agree with me that under the rules one quarter of my pension should be ‘exportable’ to France?

B. Because of the French taxation system vis-à-vis the British imposition of the Double Taxation Convention on my pension, I am at least 1000 euros a year worse off than the retired teachers who fall under category b/. or c/.
Question . Will you agree that this is an inequitable situation?

C. The above heavier tax load could be resolved if I renounced my British nationality and adopted French nationality.

Question. Would you advise me to change my national status to achieve equitability in taxation?
Since your answer to this third (rhetorical) question must surely (?) be ‘no’. Then I must ask you;-
What will you (HM Government) do to ensure that my taxation burden is equitable? ..."

DLA, Attendance or Carer’s Allowances -- Pensioners AND OTHERS who have been deprived of their rights by the action of Whitehall! ACT!

To return to introductory posting of this blog.(Four Concerns)... click

This posting is now out-of -date but is retained for interest. - More recent postings on benefits (see Index) should be read.

On February 24th it seemed that much has been achieved.
Please refer to the Concern 1 links.
The matter still lies in limbo-land.
Read the sterling efforts of Roger Gale M.P.

Letter from Tima Hamilton...
Along with some fellow campaigners, we have decided on an email "bombing campaign" to force the DWP/Exportability Team to sit up and take notice. Here is what we would like people to do:

"For those who adhered to the Exportability Team's advice that "there is no need to contact us again on this matter", may I suggest that this is totally ignored (as we are!) and that all affected parties send an email demanding the reinstatement and back payment of their DLA (care component), Carers or Attendance Allowance in accordance with ECJ ruling C-299/05 of 18 October 2007. NOTE: Make sure that you put the email for the personal attention of: Ms Kettle.

regards Tina Hamilton

You can also refer to the reply made to the House of Commons on 2 February, during questions to the Works and Pensions team, by Ms Rosie Winterton (to MP Roger Gale's question see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u6dE0uETsI), whereby she stated:

"We have been clear that if people claimed the benefit before they moved abroad, they are entitled to continue to claim it."

This statement has been reiterated in a letter to Roger Gale, a copy of which can be downloaded from: http://www.paysansgrigny.com/dla-campaign.html and attached to your email.

The email address (in case you don't have it to hand) is:
EXPORTABILITY.TEAM@DWP.GSI.GOV.UK

In addition, copy the same email to the following two address:

ministers@dwp.gsi.gov.uk
This is the email address for Minister for Pensions, Ms Winterton's office.

dcpu.customer-services@dwp.gsi.gov.uk
This is the email address to make official complaints to in respect to the Exportability Team (and any other DWP department).

When you receive the bog standard excuse from the Exportability Team, send a copy of their reply to with a suitable complaint to the customer services address (line above)."

To find out who is your MEP

[Information from the European Commission]

Consult the European Parliament website at the following address:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu
On the first page, click on your preferred language - English, (bottom line, second item) or French. On the resulting page click on "Your MEPs" (along the top).
A map of the EU will appear. Click on France and a list of MEPs by regional constituency will appear. Clicking on any name will give details of that MEP including an address.
Alternatively, you could certainly find out who your local MEPs are by asking at the nearest Mairie.

The Absurdity of Government Pensions

To go to start of this blog, click here.
Pensions which are ‘deemed’ to be paid by the Government for services rendered are never allowed to be taxed abroad (i.e. exported) in France or Spain or anywhere else in Europe where a Double Taxation Convention exists between the UK and the EU country. That means, as far as I know, all of them.

Strangely NHS pensions are almost all ‘exportable’ even though they are paid by the paymaster general of the UK Government. The NHS staff are presumably not considered as having rendered service to the Government.

Police, Firemen, Military personnel. and civil servants and local Government workers – all are deemed to be paid by the Government or local Government.

If teachers were employed by the local Government then their pensions are not exportable. HOWEVER, if a teacher was employed at a private school, then their pension is exportable, even though it was acquired through exactly the same teachers’ superannuation scheme. If you had worked in both sectors the situation is confused, and quite ridiculous and impossible to disentangle. If you are French or changed your nationality and had worked in any school in Britain, then it becomes once more confused. [Gilbert and Sullivan might have invented it!]
The situation is quite stupid.
For Teachers.
If you are a State sector pensioner you are unfairly treated as things stand. If the French interpreted the Convention in the same manner as the Spanish interpret the UK/Spanish Convention, you would be much better off.
If you are a private sector pensioner, your source of income will be identical but you are (or can be) fairly treated.

The Elderly lady from Ramsgate

To visit the start and the index click here

Watching the ‘Cash in the Attic’ programme on TV, my attention was drawn to the item where an elderly lady was selling up her semi-detached bungalow with the intention to live in France. Does she know what she is doing? She is obviously not very wealthy. She just wants to live in a quiet place, without hassle. She is not a person who would know anything about stock markets or finance. The opportunity exists for her to live somewhere less crowded, within a culture which may well have been a childhood dream – the cottage in the country in a village. The coming of the European Union has made it possible.

If she moves, will the British Government forget her? Of course it will. She no longer exists. She may still get the Winter Fuel Allowance, but the British Government only grants it because the Euro Commission told it that it should. She is therefore fortunate. But she is still subject to the variations in the value of the £, and any other financial restriction that the British Government could place on her.

She is better off than a friend I know – Rosemary. She retired to France 20 years ago and is now in her late eighties. She came because her daughter lives in France. Her daughter is middle aged, without any income. Now they live together on the reduced pensions Rosemary has from a shortened teaching career (as do many women who have been mothers) and the reduced old age pension. She does not get the Winter Fuel Allowance because she left England more than fifteen years ago.

Why oh why does the British Government treat Europe as some distant alien land? The ladies above are doing what their predecessors would have done in the 1930’s, Then they would have moved to Cornwall, the Dorset Coast or indeed Ramsgate from where the first lady is migrating.

The British Government should treat its pensioners identically wherever they live in Europe. This age group of more than 75 years old was born in the depression, suffered the bombing of War, served in the services or National Service, suffered the austerity of post war England, were teenagers before teenager culture existed, and now just because they choose to take the opportunity to spend their last years in the culture of Europe, their Government in Britain treats them as second class citizens.

Then because they either cannot exercise a vote or if they can the voting system offered is a useless sop to democracy, they are ignored, and dare one say despised.