Theogrin

I am ex. British military in receipt of a pension, but self-employed as an English Trainer. At the start of this year, I obtained my German citizenship like many other Brits have done. However, after submitting my annual tax return and waiting a long time for the result, I have just received a letter from the local tax office pointing out a particular rule in the double taxation agreement between the UK and Germany (Article 18 - Government service, paragraph 2). Unfortunately, this clearly states that if you are both resident in Germany and also a citizen of Germany, state/government pensions are taxable in Germany. Unfortunately, the double taxation agreement is not an EU agreement and so will probably not change during Brexit. The implications for me as self-employed, are that not only will I loss out of the UK personal tax free allowance on my pension, but I will also have to pay 15.5% of it to the health insurance. Potentially losing about 30% of the pension! Didn't really count on that when I applied for German Citizenship; it thought it was going to help make life easier!   So, unless anyone has any better ideas, I'm now seriously considering handing back the German citizenship and just applying for 'Permission for permanent residence' after Brexit.