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Where Taxpayers and Advisers Meet

Assurance Vie payout to UK tax resident: Help!

Anglaise
Posts:1
Joined:Sun Sep 09, 2018 12:02 pm
Assurance Vie payout to UK tax resident: Help!

Postby Anglaise » Sun Sep 09, 2018 12:40 pm

Apologies – I am having trouble with the forum. My message keeps getting submitted before I have finished it! But here is my full question:

I am a UK tax resident. My uncle, a French resident, died last year. He had named me the beneficiary of an Assurance Vie he had taken out. I received a sum of money and paid no tax on it in France because it was below the relevant tax threshold there of 152,500 euros.

My question is, what happens with regards to UK tax. Do I need to pay income tax on it here in the UK? The key question seems to be whether it is regarded as a “chargeable event gain”. My local tax accountant just said HMRC don’t need to know, but having looked into it on the HMRC website, I no longer believe him.

Here is what I think is the relevant passage from the HMRC website:
“What will give rise to a gain
The most common occasions on which a gain arises are if during the year:
• cash or other benefits were received on a full or part surrender of a policy
• a policy matured or was brought to an end by the death of the life insured
• the sale or assignment of a policy (or part of a policy) for value
• the policy was a Personal Portfolio Bond (PPB) (even if the insurer had not paid cash or other benefits during the year)
If the calculations which are required following these events show that a gain has arisen your insurer should send you a chargeable event certificate showing the gain. You should include this in the ‘Additional Information’ pages of the tax return which are for less common types of income.” HMRC ENDS.

I have had letters from the French life insurance company but I don’t know whether any of them constitute a “chargeable event certificate”. What is this in French? I have had an initial letter outlining the value of the policy (including the values of primes verses, assiette fiscale sous article 990-1 du CGI et un valorisation du contrat au jour du deces) and then a dossier du reglement which outlined that I had not paid any French tax. But I have not received anything headed “un certificat du xxx”.

I currently do self-assessment and am on a low income so don’t currently pay any UK income tax.
Any advice on how I should proceed?
Merci a tous.

Tom7000
Posts:74
Joined:Wed Aug 06, 2008 3:30 pm

Re: Assurance Vie payout to UK tax resident: Help!

Postby Tom7000 » Mon Sep 10, 2018 4:30 pm

I would have thought at the point you receive it, its an inheritance and that's tax free.
You then pay tax on whatever income and gains your new investment throw up from the date of acquisition.


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