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Pensions, Tax Relief in Spain, Scams...and Cheques. Remember those?
1K views
Jan 13, 2025
Christina Brady was in with Moody on Tuesday morning, taking the usual look at the markets, answering a listener question on pensions and tax relief in Spain. Plus, what to look for (and to look out for) in a financial advisor. Would you pay one in cash? And who are you supposed to make the cheque out to? If you're unsure about anything to do with your personal finances, you can always get in touch through [email protected] This is the link to the UK government website to check on your pension status: www.gov.uk/check-state-pension If you found this helpful please hit Like 👍 and Subscribe to our channel for the latest. Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHyi... Website: http://www.bayradio.fm/ Mobile App: https://app.appinstitute.com/yddcc Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BayRadioInSpain Twitter: https://twitter.com/bayradioinspain Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bayradiospain/
View Video Transcript
0:00
please do not fall into that trap
0:02
because if you lose your money
0:03
you're very unlikely to get it back
0:05
these people don't have professional
0:06
indemnity insurance
0:07
you are basically stuffed so please look
0:10
after your future
0:12
look after yourselves look after your
0:13
family don't be scammed
0:15
this is bay radio we're lucky enough to
0:18
have every fortnight christina and brady
0:20
from black tower financial management
0:22
in the last couple of three weeks been
0:24
back in with us in the studio as well
0:25
which has been nice i'll put the post up
0:27
on facebook asking for
0:28
you know any questions anyone could ask
0:30
i thought that was funny that it'll mean
0:31
but nobody's liked it yet
0:34
i'm trying my best um but somebody did
0:36
come through it
0:37
looks like a couple from calpe um so i'm
0:40
retired living in spain receive a
0:42
private and state pension i'm guessing
0:43
this is a uk
0:44
state pension uh my wife receives a very
0:47
small private pension
0:48
how is the tax relief worked out and how
0:51
much tax relief should a taxpayer get
0:53
that sounds like one of those tongue
0:55
twisters in spain
0:57
um uh money you get from your patients
0:59
is
1:00
taxed as work work income and the
1:03
allowances in spain are very very low
1:05
um personal allowances start at 5 600
1:10
euros per annum and it does go up by
1:13
age so it depends what age you are but
1:15
it never goes up very much
1:18
the maximum is around 7 000 euros per
1:20
annum
1:21
what you can do is if your wife's
1:24
pension is very very low you can do
1:26
a joint return because in spain if
1:28
someone doesn't you if you're married
1:29
and you someone one partner doesn't use
1:31
up the whole of their allowance
1:33
it can be switched to the other partner
1:35
your you know your other spouse
1:37
so you can utilize their unused
1:39
allowance
1:40
however if you're if that's not going to
1:42
work out your accountant will do a
1:44
calculation so you they will usually
1:45
work out
1:46
as a sole person as a married person
1:48
using both allowances
1:50
if your wife gets a small private
1:51
pension i'm not sure how much that is
1:54
but if you're only getting income from
1:55
one source like one pension it doesn't
1:57
matter
1:58
what type of pension it is um and it's
2:00
under 14 000 euros a year you don't need
2:03
to declare that you don't need to pay
2:04
tax
2:05
so it depends how it is so it depends on
2:08
obviously your age how much income is
2:10
coming in for both of you
2:12
whether you can utilize some of your
2:14
wife's unused allowance and whether that
2:16
makes sense
2:16
or for your wife to utilize the fact
2:18
that she can get all of hers tax free
2:20
and then does that counterbalance what
2:22
you're paying on tax on your side
2:24
so there are various scenarios for you
2:26
i'm afraid in spain personal allowances
2:28
are abysmally low
2:30
um if you compare them to uk 11 000
2:32
pounds
2:34
5 600 euros it's not a lot
2:37
um and there are not many other
2:39
allowances you get
2:42
so it's best to talk to your history or
2:44
accountant and get them to do
2:46
comparisons for you
2:47
on a sole basis jointly with your wife
2:50
and see which one is best for you see i
2:53
knew you'd be able to answer that even
2:54
without some of the finer details in
2:56
there i'd have just looked at that and
2:57
goes
2:57
dude what would what what that's not
3:00
it's not my business it's
3:01
interesting though if you are getting
3:03
income from just one source so you've
3:04
got no other form of income if it's just
3:06
for a pension
3:07
you can get up to 14 000 a year and you
3:10
don't need to declare it so in fact it's
3:12
tax-free
3:13
um but what i found is there are some
3:15
advice companies that are saying to
3:17
people if you've got a final salary
3:18
pension or if you've got
3:20
a personal pension if you transfer it
3:22
into our cure ops or our sip
3:24
you can then take advantage of this tax
3:26
allowance it's if you've got any pension
3:29
okay but you mustn't have any other form
3:31
of income so you cannot get income from
3:32
savings
3:33
investments from rental it's got to be
3:36
your sole source of income
3:38
so that's that's very interesting that's
3:39
for people to know also on the pension
3:41
side in the uk uh
3:46
the uh pension age is being raised again
3:49
it was 50 this is for private pensions
3:52
um uh cure ups sips final salary
3:55
pensions et cetera unless you've got
3:57
underlying health conditions it was 50
3:59
it was then raised to 55 in 2028 that
4:02
age
4:02
is rising to 57. state pension age will
4:06
then be 67. they tend to keep a 10 year
4:09
between them they are talking about
4:11
raising the
4:12
state pension age after that to 60 uh
4:14
sorry to 70 which will mean
4:16
for your private pensions for your sips
4:19
for your cure ups
4:20
you will have to be 60. so if you
4:23
started taking your pension now and
4:24
you're 55
4:25
you're fine you can take it at 55 up to
4:29
2028. if at 2028
4:32
you are going to be 55 and you think you
4:34
could take your pension
4:36
tough you'll have to wait another two
4:37
years until you're 57
4:40
so i'm afraid if you are a youngster
4:43
we've got another eight years to go
4:45
before you get to 55
4:47
then you will have to wait till you're
4:48
57. um there is more and more talk about
4:52
the uk
4:53
government either getting rid of the
4:54
triple lock on state pensions
4:56
or changing the way it's calculated so
4:58
with the triple lock pensioners get the
5:00
higher off i have to remember this
5:02
um it's either the retail price index i
5:04
think i wrote it down somewhere because
5:06
i
5:06
always always forget this i remember the
5:09
percentage two and a half percent
5:10
it is it's a higher of two and a half
5:12
percent
5:13
um the retail price index or average
5:16
wage growth i think that's
5:18
right um what they're saying is if you
5:20
take the figures as they've been over
5:22
the last few years
5:23
they've been nowhere near 2.5 so the
5:25
government is saying it's worked out on
5:27
an annual basis
5:28
they're either going to increase that so
5:29
it has to be the average over
5:31
two three four years or they're talking
5:34
about getting rid of it all together
5:35
they need to recoup
5:37
money from coronavirus from what's
5:39
happened they cannot just do it to
5:41
people who are working
5:42
because they're going to go up in arms
5:44
pensioners are going to have to pay
5:46
something
5:46
it depends on what the government does
5:48
hopefully they won't introduce any taxes
5:50
on
5:51
further taxes on pension income there
5:53
was talk of them getting rid of
5:55
in the uk you can 20 25 of your pension
5:58
when you take it tax-free
6:00
they are talking they were talking about
6:01
getting rid of that as well
6:03
so you would get no tax free allowance
6:04
in spain unfortunately
6:06
if you're a spanish tax president there
6:08
is no tax free allowance on your pension
6:10
so if you do take your pension in spain
6:13
if you take 25 percent you should report
6:16
it to the spanish authorities
6:17
and you should be taxed that's the way
6:20
if you're going to play it all above
6:21
board
6:22
it's up to you but that's the way it
6:24
goes so with pensions
6:26
obviously there could be some changes
6:27
coming along as i said there's
6:28
definitely a change on when you can
6:30
receive your pension so that applies to
6:31
uk
6:32
private pensions if you've got a sip
6:35
um not state pensions obviously that's
6:38
going to go up to 67
6:40
and for final salary pensions you
6:43
sometimes can get it earlier if you've
6:45
got underlying health
6:46
conditions and that's at the discretion
6:48
of your trustee
6:50
or for private pensions they have a
6:51
questionnaire you fill in and if you
6:53
meet all the criteria they will give it
6:54
if you've got
6:55
a life limiting illness so if your life
6:58
expectancy is only four or five years
7:00
sometimes they will give you a pension
7:02
earlier so it's worth looking into it
7:04
um also you've got to be careful some
7:06
pensions that were taken out in the uk
7:08
pre i'd say 2 000 sorry do not have
7:12
flexible drawdown
7:13
and we've got lots of people coming to
7:14
us saying we've got these pensions we
7:16
can't take flexible drawdown
7:18
what do we do usually it's transferring
7:20
it the most
7:21
cost-effective vehicle at the moment is
7:23
a sip it's very very cheap with a
7:25
platform
7:26
uh curops we're not sure what's going to
7:27
happen after brexit
7:29
if this if that product is still going
7:30
to be a viable product it'll be okay for
7:32
people who
7:33
who've got it but going forward it may
7:35
not be a product that's available we
7:36
have to wait to see if we've got a deal
7:38
or no deal
7:39
so there could be quite a lot of changes
7:40
coming up regarding pensions
7:42
also regarding brexit if we have a no
7:44
deal
7:45
um certain funds in the uk will no
7:48
longer be accessible in the eu
7:51
most fund companies have already taken
7:52
this into consideration they've set up
7:54
a sort of a similar fund in either
7:58
luxembourg or ireland so that can
8:00
automatically come into europe because
8:01
they're part of the eu
8:03
we have found many many people coming to
8:05
us saying that their uk advisors
8:07
can no longer advise them because they
8:10
are not resident in the uk
8:12
and what will happen is their pi which
8:14
is professional indemnity insurance will
8:15
no longer cover them
8:17
if they have clients that do not reside
8:19
in the uk
8:20
um so we're having to take those people
8:22
on and sometimes restructure their whole
8:24
portfolio because their financial
8:26
advisors in the uk
8:27
have put it together from a uk tax
8:29
perspective which isn't advantageous in
8:32
spain
8:32
isis are not tax advanta and
8:35
advantageous in spain so you have to
8:36
change that
8:37
put them into tax compliant things that
8:39
are given tax advantages in spain
8:41
they can mitigate inheritance tax income
8:44
tax etc
8:46
so we are getting a lot of people coming
8:47
to us prior to moving there's still a
8:49
lot of people planning to move here
8:51
i'm trying to get here before december
8:53
um so we've got lots of people and lots
8:55
of people that have just moved here that
8:57
haven't become tax resident because
8:58
they're not gonna
8:59
you you can move here you become
9:00
resident after three months
9:02
tax resident after six months if you
9:04
still have six months so some people are
9:05
only gonna be here three months
9:07
uh they've just come over so we're
9:09
trying to restructure their stuff for
9:11
them for some people
9:12
things are fine as they are um there's
9:14
nothing worse than go and see a
9:15
financial advisor and you've got
9:16
investments and they say
9:17
oh we need to change everything most of
9:20
the time you don't
9:22
so be very very wary and what you've got
9:24
to understand
9:25
is if you do cancer or close down
9:28
investments in the uk
9:29
you may have a very big tax liability a
9:32
chargeable gain in the uk
9:34
so before you do anything it's advisable
9:36
to check with the uk
9:38
accountant or the company to see what
9:39
your chargeable game will be
9:41
if you close down a uk investment and
9:44
then they weigh that up
9:45
against the benefits of moving over to
9:47
another investment that you've been
9:48
recommended
9:49
to take out in spain um but be very wary
9:52
and if someone tries to pressurize you
9:54
if someone starts sending you loads of
9:56
emails phoning you saying
9:58
you've got to do this before the end of
9:59
the year you've got to do this now say
10:01
hang on hold back
10:02
don't be rushed into anything please no
10:04
one make hasty decisions
10:06
where your financial future is concerned
10:08
it will affect you now it will affect
10:10
you in the future
10:11
and for most of us we're not getting any
10:13
younger we don't want to lose what we've
10:15
got
10:16
we want to be able to retire i came
10:18
across a gentleman the other day
10:20
who had been scammed out of a large
10:22
figure we were talking
10:23
you know six figures a financial advisor
10:28
had come to see
10:29
him and had advised him to get into
10:32
certain investments and said if you give
10:35
me cash
10:36
or a cheque i will invest it on your
10:38
behalf
10:39
this gentleman did i'm sure this person
10:41
did it to many others he is now in dubai
10:44
this person these people cannot get
10:46
their money back
10:47
when you see a financial advisor for one
10:49
thing they should never
10:50
ever and i'm gonna say it's really
10:51
stunning ask you for cash
10:53
if anyone asks you for cash you show
10:55
them a door you kick their butt
10:57
also they should never ask for a check
10:59
written out in their personal name
11:01
the check should always be written out
11:03
to the provider who is giving you that
11:05
investment so it's prudential it's made
11:07
out of potential
11:08
if it's a company called i don't know
11:10
xyz it's may
11:11
but never to an individual or the
11:13
financial advice company
11:15
so if someone comes from to you from say
11:17
um
11:18
i don't know fish fingers financial
11:20
advisors and says could you write it out
11:22
to us
11:23
no okay you do not do that or
11:26
or if they ask you to do a telephonic
11:27
transfer telephonic transfers only to
11:29
the company
11:30
that is giving you the investment your
11:32
risk is with that company
11:34
not the financial advisors please please
11:36
do not be scammed
11:38
there are lots of people out there who
11:40
are scamming not only the elderly but
11:42
people who are vulnerable
11:43
some people are very very bright but
11:45
they don't know about finance
11:47
and people bamboozled them with terms
11:48
and saying look i've done an investment
11:50
myself i've got 60
11:52
return this year or 60 return since the
11:55
downturn
11:55
invest in what i'm investing in it maybe
11:57
not be normally investments but that's
11:59
how you make extra money
12:00
no this is where continental wealth fell
12:03
down they were investing in stuff that
12:04
was high risk and selling it as a low
12:06
risk
12:07
please do not fall into that trap
12:09
because if you lose your money
12:10
you're very unlikely to get it back
12:12
these people don't have professional
12:13
indemnity insurance
12:15
you are basically stuffed so please look
12:18
after your future
12:19
look after yourselves look after your
12:20
family don't be scammed
12:22
now it's interesting who you'd make the
12:24
uh something payable to yeah
12:26
no not brought that up before so no it's
12:28
very very
12:29
please be very careful do you have any
12:30
checks still on these days
12:32
we do actually the reason the only
12:33
reason we get checks is because spanish
12:35
banks are very very greedy
12:36
and if people are doing an investment
12:38
some banks
12:40
are trying to charge people up to one
12:42
percent or more to do the transfer
12:44
what they don't tell them is there is a
12:45
standard charge sheet but it's very
12:47
flexible
12:48
but if you pay by cheque even though a
12:49
check takes more to process cost more
12:51
money
12:52
it's for free so for euro investments
12:54
and some sterling investments people
12:56
still do pay by cheque
12:57
because it's saving them if you're doing
12:59
investments for 250 000
13:01
they're trying to charge you one percent
13:03
you're saving a lot of money
13:05
that's supposed to say so that's why the
13:07
only reason we do checks
13:08
um some providers now are not accepting
13:10
checks but most still are because they
13:12
understand the problems
13:13
however if you pay by a euro check it
13:16
can take up to 28 days to clear
13:18
certain checks take a couple of days but
13:21
it's better than
13:22
it's better saving you two and a half
13:23
grand by doing that
13:25
than uh going through the bank and they
13:26
charge you know they just charge so much
13:28
for telephonic transfers
13:29
they're really sort of doing themselves
13:30
a disfavor they should i think to do a
13:33
telephonic transfer cost them about 12
13:35
euros
13:36
um even if they charge you 50 they're
13:38
still making a profit
13:39
but no they get greedy and you know with
13:41
the mergers that going on there's a
13:42
rumor
13:43
bank here are going to emerge with
13:45
likaisha bank yeah
13:46
um so form one huge bank with assets of
13:49
about 650 million it will be
13:51
a more of a spain centric bank it's not
13:54
going to be an international bank
13:55
because they don't have international
13:56
arms like santander
13:58
and the other banks um but that seems to
14:00
be you know going through at the moment
14:02
so we'll have to see that i mean more
14:03
branch closures more people out of work
14:05
um hopefully they'll bring down their
14:08
costs because both of them charge well i
14:09
know
14:10
bankia charges uh 14 euros i think a
14:12
month to keep a bank account open
14:14
unless you've got wages coming in or a
14:16
certain amount each month which adds up
14:18
to quite a lot over a year
14:20
and i understand why because most of
14:22
them are getting negative interest rate
14:23
on the deposits they put with the
14:24
central banks overnight and they're
14:26
having to recoup their fees
14:28
i just thought we'd come back to the
14:29
markets and and that's because
14:31
we're dropping just a little bit yeah
14:32
the exchange rate is now 110
14:36
1.109 um that's due to brexit
14:39
and they feel that a no deal is much
14:41
more likely
14:42
stock exchange all in the red footsie is
14:45
now down at 5 9
14:46
20. most of that is due to the fact that
14:49
new york
14:50
is reopened after holidays they're
14:52
taking stock of things that have
14:54
happened um they're starting to sell
14:57
sell off some of their positions um wait
15:00
and the price will go down then they'll
15:01
buy them back
15:02
um that's not too bad but the exchange
15:04
rate if we do have a no deal brexit i
15:06
would expect it to go down maybe to one
15:08
to one and then come back up
15:09
so we could see a bit further down which
15:11
is good for you but well that's fine for
15:13
my
15:13
trifling amount but not for people who
15:15
get pensions and their
15:17
salaries in sterling no not if it's
15:19
coming this way it's no good to you at
15:20
all
15:20
but if any of you have any questions on
15:22
anything i've said today i would like
15:24
any advice
15:24
any guidance please do not hesitate to
15:27
get in touch we are here to help you and
15:29
i mean that sincerely
15:31
you can email info at blacktowerfm.com
15:35
or bayradio or one word at
15:38
blacktowerfm.com
15:40
put for the attention of christina it
15:41
comes straight through to me
15:43
and i will deal with it you can always
15:45
go to our website which is
15:47
blacktowerfm.com
15:48
go into spain i'm under costa blanca
15:51
you'll find my details there just email
15:54
me it doesn't matter if you're not in
15:55
the costa blanca it doesn't matter where
15:56
you are in europe
15:58
in spain where there'll be someone at
16:00
blacktower that can help you so if you
16:01
come through to me
16:02
i can always pass you on to the correct
16:04
person so please don't worry
16:06
if you're not in the costa blanca if you
16:08
would like to talk to us you can call
16:09
the office which is 965-05-8212
16:14
and remember we are here to help you and
16:16
to try and make your financial
16:18
future as secure as possible and that's
16:20
our job
16:21
yeah you use the bay radio email address
16:23
if you remember that one because they
16:24
know it's coming from you listening to
16:26
this
16:26
uh that um little pensions thing we did
16:28
by the way on our youtube channel
16:30
so if you go on youtube search for bay
16:32
radio of spain make sure you uh
16:33
subscribe to the channel
16:34
send you the link for how to get your uk
16:37
state pension calculation i'll do that
16:38
when i get back to the office yeah i
16:39
mean you can you can find it i think um
16:41
it's
16:41
i think we do mention it in that little
16:43
clip we should you'll find it
16:45
it's easy if you just post it on
16:46
facebook so people can just look at it
16:47
it's interesting actually to see when
16:49
you're going to get your pension and how
16:50
much you're going to get
16:51
a little bit scary as well well it comes
16:53
up with a zero
16:54
yeah but it's scary when it says this is
16:56
the year yeah you retired
16:58
oh that's what you're supposed to do is
16:59
20 yeah oh no
17:04
it's quite near for him don't worry oh
17:06
well okay but it's it's building up
17:08
nicely but see obviously
17:09
it may be the case that you've left off
17:11
paying your national insurance
17:12
it will tell you how to top up it will
17:14
tell you what you have to pay and then
17:16
you have to weigh
17:17
up what you're going to get as an annual
17:18
pension versus what you have to pay and
17:20
for some people it is a very very good
17:22
deal and i've had a couple of clients
17:24
the amount's been quite large to pay in
17:26
but the amount they're getting back each
17:27
year way outweighs what they've put in
17:29
so that is interesting to do as well so
17:31
please try and spend time on yourself
17:33
try and sort out your finances
17:35
i'm a good one to talk i'm a financial
17:36
advisor and my finances always come last
17:39
but for most of you you will fold time
17:41
if you've got any questions
17:42
if you are unsure just get in touch the
17:44
same as anyone have you ever seen a
17:46
builder's house where they live
17:47
what happens unfinished projects all
17:49
over the place on my desk for the
17:50
weekend
17:51
look at your pension have i of course
17:53
not no
17:54
thank you for coming in as always we're
17:55
lucky to have you this hour every
17:57
fortnight so we've recorded that
17:59
you were talking straight to the camera
18:01
for most of that like susanna reid there
18:02
with the microphone in the middle yeah i
18:05
don't like cameras
18:06
you were hiding behind the first pit but
18:07
that second bit you made it move giving
18:08
it plenty straight it down the lens
18:10
there so
18:11
we'll get that sorted out onto our
18:13
youtube channel bait radio in spain and
18:15
we'll see you in a couple of weeks time
18:16
all right thank you
18:31
you
#Financial Planning & Management
#Inheritance & Estate Planning
#Retirement & Pension
#Seniors & Retirement