Hello, this is my first post to the discussion board although i frequently read it-very helpful and informative!
I was very interested to read about the new guidance regarding the treatment of foreign state pensions and the assessed income period for pension credit as many of our clients that are in receipt of pension credit decide to apply for their Irish pensions if they have worked in Ireland. In many cases people apply quite a few years after they become eligible and so can potentially receive a large backdated amount and even if the client applies when they are 66 there is usually a backdated amount of some kind due to the length of time it takes to process the Irish pension claims.
When the Irish pension eventually comes through, if the client is in receipt of pension credit the pension service deducts the amount of pension credit that they had been paid since their entitlement to Irish pension started; we had a client in the other day for example who was expecting thousands of pounds but after the pension credit deduction received £11-he was very disappointed (obviously!)
I wondered if anyone had any information on whether or not this new ruling will have any bearing on the pension service making these deductions if the clients foreign pension is received by the pension service during the assessed income period? Will they still be able to make these deductions..or will the clients receive all the money from their foreign pensions and be able to go on a cruise..or something!?