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Time is fast approaching for UK taxpayers and expats with UK tax obligations to ensure they meet the 30 September 2018 deadline laid down by HMRC for the declaration of all UK tax liabilities on overseas income and assets that fall under the auspices of the Requirement to Correct (RTC) legislation, Finance (No 2) Act 2017.

Non-compliance, even if it is inadvertent, has the potential to be met with uncompromising penalties, so anyone who is any doubt about their tax obligations regarding offshore investments – if you have expat regular savings or wealth management concerns outside of the UK – should contact their financial adviser immediately as a matter of urgency.

The penalty for most breaches is 200% of the tax that has been avoided. However this may be reduced to 100% depending on the taxpayer’s perceived level of compliance. That said, the minimum is 150% in cases where disclosure has been prompted by HMRC. Larger non-disclosures may be punished by further penalty of 10%

The UK government has admitted there are not enough pension transfer specialist advisers to deal with demand, particularly in the case of more complex transfers into overseas pensions. This was the government’s response in March to a consultation launched two years ago, on whether the need to take financial advice, introduced with pension freedoms, created difficulties for overseas residents – residents such as those living in Cyprus wishing to transfer their pension savings from the UK to a qualifying recognised overseas pension scheme (QROPS).

According to data from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), there were just short of 10,000 transfers to a QROPS in the 2016/2017 tax year. However, from these, only transfers of more than £30,000 would be subject to the advice requirement.