Hi Australia You'll need to research this from both sides - i.e. how is the incoming money treated in the Australian system, and also how is the outgoing money treated in Ireland / the UK. From the UK perspective, if the money isn't being transferred to a Qualifying Recognised Overseas Pension Scheme (QROPS) you'll lose 40% in tax when it's transferred. Here's a link to the gov.uk webpage with some information on this: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/check-the-recognised-overseas-pension-schemes-notification-list#countries-a-to-c Note that there are many schemes listed in Australia, but I'm pretty sure that these would all be self-managed super funds (SMSFs) that individuals have set up for themselves, where they can draft the trust deed of the fund to meet the QROPS requirements. So if you're looking to consolidate all of the pensions into a single pension in Australia I'd say your only option (to avoid losing the 40% in tax) is to set up an SMSF. I'm not familiar with the Irish system, but from googling there are also hoops that need to be jumped through before an amount can be transferred overseas. I don't know how easy or difficult it is to meet the necessary requirements, and what the tax implications are at the Ireland end if the money is transferred. From the Australian end... for the fund to be able to accept the transfer you need to be under age 74. If you're 75 or over the Australian fund won't be able to accept the transfer. Currently there's a work test that applies if you're age 67-74 at the time of requesting the transfer, but in this year's budget it was announced that this would be removed, so that should be gone by the time you come back in 2023. (The work test requires someone to work for 40 hours in any 30 consecutive days in the financial year in which they're requesting the transfer). If you transfer the money within 6 months of becoming an Australian resident, all of the money coming in will be treated as a non-concessional contribution. If you're under 67 you'll be able to transfer $330,000 across without exceeding the non-concessional contribution cap. The Australian fund won't be able to accept any more than this. (And you don't want to open up a separate account in another Australian fund to transfer more money across, as all of these contributions will be reported to the ATO, and any excess amounts - i.e. above $330,000 - will have to be taken back out of the super fund or they'll be taxed at the top marginal tax rate, currently 45%). If you're age 67-74 you'll only be able to transfer $110,000 across without exceeding the cap. Basically - $110,000 is the yearly cap on non-concessional contributions. Amounts coming in from overseas count towards this cap. If you're under age 67 you can use up three years worth at once, so $330,000, but this means you can't make any additional contributions in the following two years. So if your overseas savings have a higher value than this you won't be able to transfer all of the money at once. You'd transfer $330,000 in 2023. Then nothing in 2024, nothing in 2025. Then another $330,000 in 2026 if you're still under age 67. Otherwise, $110,000 per year transferred across. No tax is payable in Australia on non-concessional contributions that aren't in excess. Once you've been a resident of Australia for more than six months, a separate calculation will be done to split any transferred amount into the contributions component, and the earnings component. Basically - what was the value of the overseas account at the time you became an Australian resident, and what's the value at the time you're requesting the transfer. If the transfer amount is higher (which it may not be in your case as you're already drawing a pension from the pension schemes), the difference between the two is the earnings amount. This bit won't count towards the non-concessional cap. You can elect for it to be treated as assessable income of the Australian fund, which will result in the fund paying 15% tax on this amount. If you don't elect for it to be treated as assessable income of the fund it'll be assessable income for you, which may result in a higher amount of tax payable, depending on your total assessable income in the year. So, good luck. Definitely not an easy thing to consolidate retirement savings internationally. You'd also need to look into the tax payable if you left the Irish and UK pensions where they are, see if it's worth the trouble of jumping through all the hoops. I'm an ATO employee voluntarily providing my time here
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