We viewed it as a small price to pay for good health cover, and better value that having full private health insurance. Unless of course the passive income is extremely large.
Yes. Handsome and clever as well 
.
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You possibly had a lot more in yours Jane. We stopped paying into the UK personal pensions when we came to France for work nearly 30 years ago. We only paid into them for a few years and we won’t be relying on them to finance our retirement.
Since there’s no urgent need for the cash I think it’s make sense in our case to just leave them invested.
Why generate a big CSM bill if we don’t have to?
“The ‘CEHR’ is applied to income above 500k€ for a married couple.”
Apologies George - I’m being thoroughly dense here.
So - I’ll be selling a house and that’ll contribute quite some money part of which will buy a house in France. Also I have savings in a savings account and finally my wife and myself have a pension we’ll pay the 6.75% tax rate on and transfer over to France into an Assurance vie.
Now - we won’t have any income as such at that point but the sums involved will be potentially quite high.
Please can I ask how to work out if we have income above 500k E?
We’re only average earners here (£35k x 2) but we’ve been putting all of our salary into our pension for 5 years (because of the tax benefits) and just scraping by on savings.
I’m being a bit dull - what does income above 500kE mean? In my case above.
If we say have £500k for selling a UK house that buys a £250k French house - £100k savings and £450k pension which we need to get by on from retiring at 57 to 67 (state pension) - does that mean we trigger something horrible and have to pay more tax both then and forever more? 
I’m thinking now (actually a bit worried by the CEHR) of leaving my pension in the UK - and converting my wife’s (using that 6.75% tax) and then converting mine a couple of years later? But I think I may have misunderstood what income above 500kE means in this context.
Believe it or not - I’m in charge of composting too as my wife hates worms (don’t get me started on ‘dalek’ composting bins - blimmin love them!!) and my wife is absolutely the gardener - her dad used to run INRA in Montpellier. I’ve been reading thread after thread here on EVERYTHING money - and have learnt quite some about the people here … … just like you and you wife - myself and my wife are both scientists and she also has had a major illness.
Life’s too short! I really don’t like any of this money stuff and only particularly want to exercise outside - but it’s ever so hard (sooooo many tax rules!) to do.
Blimey - my wife’s dad’s on the Internet - thanks forum … … never looked before.
Surely the 500k is capital, not income? So totally immaterial for CEHR?
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No need to worry! See below
I agree with Jane’s comment. Let’s assume you sell your house when UK resident/pre France, that then removes any question of whether you have a € gain in France. You can exclude the £500k from concern over the CEHR. If you sold when French resident, there are potentially very generous capital gains reliefs available, not to mention the fact that many people who make £ gains on their UK house, do not create a € gain if the purchase price and sales prices are converted at the exchange rates prevailing on both dates, given the miserable performance of the £ vs the € over a long time period. There is also concessionary French CGT exemption treatment potentially available for people who sell their former UK main residence by the end of the calendar year following their arrival in France, subject to certain conditions.
£100k savings might generate some useful investment income, taxable in France but hardly of a scale that is going to remotely trouble the CEHR.
The £450k pension fund (defined contribution??) might give you a drawn down pension of say £45k or €54k pa to bridge until 67 and state pensions. No CEHR issue.However if you took the entirety as a lump sum, then yes you would work on the assumption that CEHR might well be in point. I’m not a CEHR specialist and if you did go down the lump sum route, either take advice or presume a CEHR charge of 4% on top of the 6.75% (still not a bad rate!).
All in all, lump sum apart, I think you are miles away from generating income that would give you a CEHR problem.
I’m sorry to hear about your wife’s major illness, and hope she is now as ok as is possible…My wife and I were originally tax advisers at the same Big Four accountancy network (wonder how we met?!).
The coincidences keep on coming! We should definitely stay in touch!
Agreed. My wife thinks I’m addicted to getting out on my bike, and I suspect she’s right! Tax and pensions seem to play a much larger part in my retirement than I’d ever imagined, which isn’t something to celebrate!
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Hey George - one final question before I start digging in.
If my wife and myself split our pensions into 2 - and take them in 2 consecutive tax years (in their entirety) - would that trigger CEHR?
So we both have workplace pensions at Aviva that we can split 50:50 into the workplace and a new Stakeholder/SIPP each (I’ve just phoned Aviva to check and they’ve confirmed it’s OK) so myself and my wife would then have eg 4 x £100k pensions (2 each) in total
… … … then do you think we could take 2 in 1 tax year and then 2 in the next to overcome CEHR by keeping the total well below the E500k limit!
Just want to keep as much money as possible away from the taxman and get it into the Assurance Vie so the kids can get it (to pay off their frightening UK mortgages as soon as their houses arrive and we depart).
Not too sure how many years we’ve got left in us. Work really tires you out!!
I’m pretty sure you know what I mean.
Useful to know that monthly lenses exist … … maybe something for the future
Lovely - will be nice not to need to worry about a UK number.
Have had the kids on a 321 account PAY-G with 3 network for most of their lives, making a call every 3 months (3 pence!) to keep their Sims alive. 3 have just removed 321 and shifted their charges from 3p per minute to 35p per minute … … glad that the kids have grown up and shifted to a £4 pm Lebara account.
Blimey - you’re a mine of information - we could live on savings for 2 years with no income before the 1 off pension conversion from UK to France.
Once again Capn! exactly what we’re thinking about.
My wife and myself are actively learning Spanish and have just completed a road trip from Santander to Valencia so we know the route from Foix!
Spain appears excellent (and affordable) for dental treatment.
Excellent suggestion - so in the UK it’s April 2024 to April 2025 and in France it’s Jan 2026 to Jan 2027… … so don’t start with the transfer until Jan 2026 to Jan 2027 if we move in March 2025?
Once again - never thought about that issue.
In the spirit of equality, my wife and myself have very similar pensions and so if we both pull out 200k from Aviva through the 6.75% rate into (eventually) an assurance vie in 2 consecutive tax years to avoid CEHR … … then they’ll come over into an assurance vie for myself and another for my wife.
In effect we’ve just shifted each of our UK pensions into each of our assurance vies?
That’d avoid any form of transfer between us I think.
So many traps in the system!!
Hi Chris - I think George1 has just taught me that it’s possible to get 6.75% tax on the lot if all transferred into a French account, rather than 25% tax free lump sum when in the UK. Problem is - is that we’re left with 75% in the UK - and getting it requires us to correspond with the UK and pay Social charges if we’ve opted into the French health system.
Thanks to George1 now -
I’m semi-thinking of transferring the whole thing across especially if I can avoid CEHR
vs
taking the lump sum and then transferring < income tax threshold monthly + private health insurance to avoid social charges
vs
alternatively just sucking up the 17.2% social charges under the understanding that they end when we get S1.
But the tax free lump sum would keep us going till S1 without touching the private pension … … but then we can’t thereafter touch the private pension as the state pension would become payable so we’d be pushed into income tax territory.
I’ve no idea how much it’d cost in tax for our UK private pension to go to our UK kids if we’re French citizens! Scarily complex.
We’ve been told sub E30k and there’s no income tax payable and so we’re going to stay below that threshold. Just easier that way - no paperwork!
Don’t really need any money with solar panels, a bike and a garden :-),
We’re managing in the UK without central heating so all should be easy in the south of France.
Hi Chris - I’ve made some recent leaps in my understanding on how to get a UK private pension accessible in France.
If you give me your details (ie what you’re thinking) - I’ll tell you what I’ve just learnt from George1 and maybe George1 can confirm whether I’m advising you correctly.
So - myself and my wife have MANY DC and DB pensions - most with hardly anything in them (thanks to job insecurity in science!) - I’m consolidating them all together but am tomorrow! going to shut down a Willis Towers Watcson to Aviva DC pension transfer … … so my wife and myself have 4 pension pots (instead of 1 each ie 2 in total) which we’ll bring over to France - 2 at a time … … over 2 consecutive tax years.
I think there’re certain advantages to taking the money >65/67 too … … that I saw someplace when were thinking of retiring in the UK. Here we can earn £12.5k + £5k Interest per year each so that’s £35k total without any tax whatsoever … … which is great but I need the sun :-).
I don’t know how people ever get used to the grey skies and the rain here and I’m in Cambridge - and I think we’re about as warm and sunny as it gets here!
Currently working with some guys on Vitamin D - I suspect that sun exposure is essential for health. Just this morning had a wild idea with my wife - Vitamin D is called cholecalciferol - wondering whether regulating our body’s cholesterol and calcium levels requires sun exposure. So - we all know about high cholesterol, but calcium is also a very tightly regulated ion inside the body - and if they both require sun exposure to keep them in check!! Anyway you heard it here first, in case the idea is right. Just about to release it on Linkedin.
Not my sort 
Hey! So absolutely - the 500k is capital, I don’t think that savings are income either (I think George1 confirms) … … but the money from the private pension isn’t really an income either - it’s 40 years of making payments into a pension and then revealing it in 1 go … … so i wouldn’t call it an income either, but I think it is considered an income.
However life becomes more complex since I think George1 has mentioned that if I take no income and live on savings for 2 years - then take an income exceptionnel (from the one off transfer of our pensions) - then the CEHR is either reduced or eliminated … … … 
It’s been 13 years since she had the big disease … … it stays with you though.
Strange memories - her dad (in the picture above) was visiting when she was diagnosed … … 2012/13 … … horrid time it was. My wife’s mother died of the same disease.
I met my wife at one of the Big 4 Pharma’s at the time back in the 80s.
So - I’ve just built a Swytch bike (it turns any bike into an electric bike - meaning cheaply!!) meaning that my wife can come cycling with me :-).