mxh

Missed flight, cancelled flight, lost luggage, medical drama in transit..

Missed flight - hmm, maybe

Cancelled flight - it's cancelled - having insurance won't make it fly.

Lost luggage - it'll turn up. Again, insurance doesn't stop it getting lost, and I can borrow stuff in the meantime.

Medical drama - again, maybe. But why wouldn't that be dealt with under the reciprocal medical agreement?

Not dismissing your points, but just wondering if there really are any 'must have' reasons.

Would you get travel insurance if you were to, for example, fly to a different Australian city for a long weekend? If not, what's the difference between this and going to the UK?

Is there much benefit in getting travel insurance to visit the UK, considering that's where I'm from?

Going back soon for a few weeks to visit friends, family etc, but am not sure what I'm likely to need it for. After all, I've got a much bigger support network still in the UK than I've managed to build up in Aus since I've been here.

Medical bills would be the only major concern, but my understanding is that there's a reciprocal medical agreement with the UK, so I'd get treatment through the NHS in case of any injury.

Otherwise, I can't really think of anything else that I'd particularly need / want it for.

Thoughts?

We're heading back to the UK for 4 weeks next month. I'm trying to book a hire car, but will need to put 2 drivers on it (ie main driver plus one additional)

Has anyone come across a website / search engine that makes this easy to find? I'm trawling through lists of cars and having to go to the small print on each option to find out if they charge for additional drivers - and when it's £10 per day it soon turns a cheap 'headline price' into a much more expensive deal.

Ideally, I'd like to sort by price INCLUDING an additional driver. Any ideas? Or any recent experiences of reasonable prices including an additional driver?

I'm a bit confused about the pros/cons, risks and benefits of using a British passport to enter Britain. Husbands UK passport is still valid, mine and sons have expired. We all have Australian passports. Husband plans to enter on UK passport, I will have to use Aussie one. Are there likely to be any issues or delays from doing it this way or is it worthwhile extending my British passport??

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I thought you were supposed to use the same passport for a complete trip (one trip being, for example, out of Aus, into UK, out of UK, back into Aus)

 

And he can't use the UK one to come back into Aus as he won't have a visa on it, so therefore he shouldn't be going into the UK on it.

 

Or maybe I've misunderstood the rules?

Banks and money exchange companies have reporting obligations for any large or regular money transfers. HMRC receive this info so am sure that the ATO would too. They are unlikely to check all of them but it is up to the individual taxpayer to demonstrate and prove the origin of the money (money laundering rules come into play too).

Not sure why you think having to declare income and profits is far-fetched. It applies to all income. Some choose not to declare all income and don't get discovered but others do.

I'm not suggeting that declaring income and profits is far fetched.

But what you're suggesting is that the ATO / HMRC may check to see when the money was put into the UK account and tax you on the difference between the value then and the value now based on the exchange rate. That's a totally different thing - there is no 'income' or 'profit' involved.

No you don't have tax to pay. The question was about leaving the money in the UK and bringing it over later. There is no tax to pay on any profit from selling your home/ primary residence.

So how long would it need to be left in the UK before the ATO / HMRC want to tax it? The exchange rate can change a lot in just a couple of days. Is it 'tax free' for a week? A month?

Again, any links to any official documentation detailing this ruling?

If the exchange rate was to improve over that 2 years then yes you will have a tax liability but you would still have gained overall of course by exchanging at a better rate. At the moment there appears to be slightly better savings rates on offer in Australia compared with the UK which is worth bearing in mind unless you are very confident that the exchange rate will improve over the two years.

Really?

So are you suggesting that when you transfer the money from a UK account (via a money transfer service) to an Australian account, the ATO will then look back to see what dates you originally put that money into the UK account, identify what the exchange rate was at that time, and see if you've made a 'profit' by waiting until now to do the exchange?

Seems a bit far-fetched to me - any links to anything official stating this?

If an item is new enough that you need to pay GST on coming into Australia, wouldn't also be new enough to enable you to claim back the VAT when leaving the UK?

I thought the whole point of the ruling was that you had to pay tax on items somewhere - either the UK or Australia - but you shouldn't have to pay in both countries.

What's the ruling on claiming back VAT when you leave the UK - does it mirror the Australian ruling for imports ie less than one year old?

Do you know of the traffic being bad out of these areas on weekedays? We were hoping it would be ok as we were going against Sydney traffic.

It's obviously better than going into the city, but Parramatta road is pretty bad even going against the flow, and there's not a lot of alternative between Newtown and the M4.

So even on a good day, I reckon it'll take you at least an hour to Penrith. I'd imagine that the West Connex will make it better in the long term, but it'll probably be a lot worse over the next few years whilst they're building it.

Not sure about getting down to the M5 for Campbelltown, but for both journeys I'd seriously recommend trying it sometime before committing. But if you do do it, at least you can claim back the M5 toll (well, almost all of it)

Just thought if we are going to move from Wollongong to Sydney we might as well move close to the CBD so we are nearer to the beach/and nightlife etc.

It's normally about 30 - 45 minutes drive at the weekend for us to get to a beach - again, it's the weekend traffic that's a nightmare. I may be wrong, but I don't think there's any public transport that gets you to a beach easily.

I don't mean to be down on the Inner West - it suits us as we work in the city. But I think you'd be wise to check out the journey times before committing.

Just out of curiosity, why would you move to the inner west when you've got to commute to Penrith and Campbeltown? I live in the inner west, and the only real positive thing (in my opinion) is that it's convenient for commuting to the city. The downsides are the traffic at weekends (and weekdays, even if you are supposedly going against the peak-time flow) and the high cost of property and rentals, all of which you're in the perfect position to avoid.

Firstly...it is an Aeroplane.........a Plane is something that carpenters use.

 

 

To answer your question......Aeroplanes (except lighties) have a Maximum Take Off Weight (MTOW) and a Maximum Landing Weight (MLW)........as well as other weights which are irrelevant to your question. This aeroplane was a United Airlines Boeing 744......with an approximate MTOW of around 410,000 kgs and a MLW of 295,000 kgs. The 744F's I flew until a few months ago had typically a MTOW of 397,000 Kgs and a MLW of 302,000 Kgs.........the difference being fuel burn off to achieve your landing weight. Aircraft have structural limitations both to airframe and landing gear so an overweight landing will only be undertaken in the event of an emergency and in this case it wasn't.......hence the dumping of fuel to achieve MLW. So in answer to your question.......NO....it wasn't a waste of fuel and a "hassled" passenger is better than a potentially dead one.

I'm pretty sure 'Plane' is a generally accepted abbreviation of the word aeroplane.

And I think you've missed the gist of the question. I fully understand why they have to dump fuel before landing - that's pretty obvious. But I was asking why, if they had established what the problem was (ie 2 blown tyres), they didn't make the emergency landing at the end of the journey rather than turn round and land straight away.

I suppose it depends on how reliable the info is about the rest of the aircraft - maybe they couldn't confirm that it was just 2 blown tyres and no other damage. I don't know - I don't fly planes / aeroplanes / aircraft / airplanes.

Haven't checked the full story, so maybe it's answered somewhere but ....

Why did the plane have to dump all it's fuel and land back in Sydney? Once it's in the air, the blown tyres aren't going to affect it at all, so why not just carry on to where it was going and do the emergency landing there? Seems a waste of fuel and a lot of hassle for the passengers to turn around and come back to Sydney.

This is what they have achieved since being in power.

 

 

* Gas Prices are up 31% under the Tories

 

 

Sounds like they're doing a good job then :-

"Residential electricity prices have risen by 91 per cent across Australia over the past five years, while gas prices have risen by 61 per cent over the same period, according to the Australian Energy Regulator."

Taken from http://www.afr.com/p/national/power_price_hikes_from_gas_boom_hxTOyltdZNB18GAP4S20FJ

No need to drain the hydraulic fluid. Definitely make sure the bikes are clean though, especially the tyres (assuming you don't also go for new ones)

You're also supposed to deflate the tyres fully, but if you're running tubeless you'll be fine just deflating until they're a bit soft - it saves breaking the bead.

Because petrol companies can use it as an excuse to rip you off and the ACCC does nothing about it

Not really - it actually gives you the opportunity to not get ripped off - ie by waiting until the price is at a low point before buying. If they wanted to rip you off, why not just keep it at the high point?

Can anyone explain WHY there is this petrol price cycle? It's often talked about (on the news etc) but I've never heard a good explanation as to why it goes up and down the way it does.

Its not like you can walk into your local NAB and walk out again having borrowed $100k for investment.

If you'd asked me that question in the UK I'd have agreed with you.

But that seems to be exactly what's being advised by this guy in the paper. I mean, if you were on a salary of $50k per year and had no savings, where else would you borrow $100k from?

There are loads of tax advantages here to investment properties - but bear in mind you have to be paying the tax in the first place to get the benefit. Obviously you'd need to talk to a good tax or financial advisor for the full details, but as far as I know you can offset things like interest on a loan for an investment property against tax, as well as depreciation of all the fixtures and fittings on an investment property, and maintenance costs, etc etc. If you are considering taking this route though, check it all out really thoroughly first and you need a great accountant so you know you are claiming for everything you can (you can also claim some or all of the accountants charges against tax too I think!)

Perhaps I should have been clearer in my original post - I'm not talking about borrowing money to invest in houses, but borrowing money to invest in stocks and shares etc

I'm not looking to actually do anything - I was just raising for discussion what I thought to be an odd concept ie that it's accepted, even encouraged, that you should borrow money and then, in effect, gamble with it.

They seem to be happy to help investors buying multiple homes (ie with negative gearing) so I was just wondering if there were some other tax incentives for borrowing for investment eg loan repayments being offset against tax?

In the Sydney Morning Herald they do a 'Money' section, and there's a bloke who answers readers questions with financial advice. On several occasions I've seen questions along the line of "I earn $50k and am considering borrowing $100k to invest" - the advisor generally tell them what a good idea this is, and gives them some options.

I've never heard of this in the UK - maybe that's just me, but I'm sure this wasn't a recommended 'investment strategy'. It does seem a bit like borrowing twice your salary and just gambling with it. But are there any tax breaks in Aus, or other differences between the UK and Aus systems, that make this a more accepted strategy here in Aus?