Ken

No, the only two things you need do arto register to vote (pre covid they always had someone from the AEC to hand out and return forms to - but it may all have switched to online now) and to obtain a passport (if you are going overseas - because as a citizen you are prohibited from entering Australia on a foreign passport and your visa was cancelled as soon as you obtained citizenship anyway) As far as anything else goes the rules are identical for a PR and a citizen so your change of status is irrelevant.

Of all the companies I run the payroll for (or have done in the past) I've never known an employee to do one of these downward PAYG variations, but a surprising large number have chosen to do upward variations.

Those forms do still exist (it's called a PAYG withholding variation). To reduce the tax withheld it has to be lodged with the ATO and they then authorise the employer to reduce the withholding. It takes at least a month to process and the ATO don't accept any applications after the 30th April due to the processing times. They are almost always only used for investments and are sadly mostly spruiked for poor investments that people wouldn't invest in if it weren't for the tax incentives. Note however that if you want more tax withheld (say because you've got a lot of untaxed income and don't like a big bill shock at the end of the year) you can just ask your employer to do a voluntary extra withholding at any time.

All Australian tax deductions are on what the UK calls the Week 1/Month 1 basis. There's no concept of a cumulative basis. Your payroll department can't help with that. Instead everyone who pays tax does a tax return after the year end to get their overpayments back. Obviously anyone who's had some untaxed income (e.g. on renting a property in the UK) may have to pay some tax rather than get a refund. There is extra encouragement at the moment because the LMITO (Low and Middle Income Tax Offset) will give all the middle income tax earners an extra $1,500 refund this year (or reduce the amount of tax they would have had to pay by that amount). Your tax free allowance is pro-rated as you weren't resident for the full year, so you'll only get it from Feb to June but the other tax bands (e.g. 19%) are not pro-rated so you'll get the full amount despite only having 3 months of income.

I find a lot of people who read these sort of threads have slightly different circumstances than the original poster so I try to include more information to cover circumstances less specific than whatever the OP outlines.

Be aware that if you want to claim a tax deduction for an amount paid into your Super there are some steps to follow. Basically you have to tell your Super fund that you are going to claim a tax deduction. They will then deduct 15% tax from the contribution (same as when your SGC payments from your employer go in). You will however save whatever your marginal rate of tax is on that contribution when you lodge your tax return. Higher rate payers may have to pay 30% tax on the contribution but they are obviously going to save 47% tax on their income. If you just pay in without notifying your Super fund they don't take tax off, but you can't claim a deduction and the contribution becomes an untaxed part of your super fund - which means in some circumstances (but not all) it gets taxed when withdrawn from the fund.

I forgot to mention one very big catch with lump sums. You are assumed to draw down the growth portion first and the capital last. This means if (as is often the case) you take both a lump sum and a pension you may well find that both portions are fully taxed as the growth since moving to Australia exceeds the amount of the lump sum and the capital you had before moving has funded the pension on which you have little or no UPP to claim! The fact that UK pension funds will often tell people that a 25% lump sum is tax free (because they are talking about UK tax) doesn't help.

Just to explain the difference between a lump sum and a pension from the ATO perspective is that the lump sum is only taxable on the amount it has grown since you moved to Australia. The entire value of your pension fund on the date you moved (or later became classed as a permanent resident for tax purposes) is therefore tax free. It can be difficult to obtain a statement on the date that you moved but an accountant can calculate it using valuations from the closest dates you have either side of your move. If however you receive a pension, then the entire pension is taxable except for the amounts you paid in to it. This is called the Undeducted Purchase Price (UPP). Growth that occurred before you moved to Australia is therefore taxed under this model. Not only that but only amounts that you paid into the pension count as UPP and not any employer contributions. Furthermore you need to obtain a private binding ruling from the ATO to agree what percentage of your pension is the UPP as obviously it varies from individual to individual. If you only have a very small pension and/or aren't paying much tax anyway you may take the view it's not even worth the trouble of claiming a UPP (especially if you lack the evidence that any amounts were deducted from your pay to invest in the pension fund). This doesn't necessarily mean that receiving your pension fund as a lump sum rather than a pension will mean paying less tax as the size and timing of the lump sum may mean the taxed portion gets taxed in a higher tax bracket whereas a pension you receive after you've stopped working may have little or no tax to pay.

I think you're overstating the risk of what happens if Wise goes bankrupt. There's a risk you might lose some of the money you have deposited with them and there'll certainly be a long delay before you get any of your money back - but it's far from the case that you'd lose all of it. The reason you have to pay a fee on large balances in Australia is because Wise is regulated (as a purchased payment facility not as a bank) and the Australian regulator requires Wise to deposit funds exceeding the customer balances (funds which remain available to reimburse depositors if Wise goes bankrupt) and this incurs a cost. For anyone wondering what the amounts you can hold with Wise before paying a fee in Australia it's: AUD 23,000 + GBP 13,000 + EUR 15,000 + USD 18,000 + around 50 other currencies each with it's own limit. Each limit is separate and billed separately and you can go over any of the limits for up to 3 days before being charged.

Based on the fact that you've said this all occurred before you left the UK and not after you arrived in Australia this would all be outside the scope of Australian taxation. It's the foreign income of a foreign resident. Perhaps you are confusing your immigration status (where you might well be a permanent resident before ever setting foot in Australia) with your tax residency which doesn't start until you arrive.

You're replying to a thread that is eight months old. I'm sure it will have been resolved by now.

Visa requirements are federal so you've looked at the correct websites for those. Quarantine requirements are state based. You need to look up the individual state that you are travelling to for what their quarantine rules are.

My wife didn't meet the 2 year requirement but I did. I got my 5 year RRV, attached a copy to her application and they issued her 1 year RRV about an hour later.

Have they stopped stamping entry and exit dates in passports? That was always the easy way to keep track.

Timtams are available in dark chocolate. As far as I'm aware penguins aren't. Not a fan of milk chocolate so Timtams win for me.

It took 7-8 months or more in Melbourne (depending on which council area) before Covid. It's hardly likely to have improved!

The weird thing about this is that UK immigration still seems to be allowing very few refugees to enter the UK. Could end up with very few people being eligible to this payment for that reason!

But aren't you in Australia? As such you're not eligible for the scheme.

If you have a medical history it is best to have the file transferred - but I've never had to pay to do that and I've moved Doctors as recently as this year (following my move interstate).

Permanent residency doesn't have an expiry - that why it's called permanent - but it can be cancelled if you are naughty or spend too long outside the country.

Yes, it's not just the mineral exports, Australian wheat farmers are going to do well out of this.

I wouldn't recommend having any money in a Ukrainian bank at the moment either.

Prior to the introduction of Medicare's predecessor (Medibank) in 1975, 77.5% of the Australian population had hospital cover. It had steadily declined to 30% before the Medicare Levy Surcharge was introduced but then jumped up to the current level.

For those it would be Extras Cover. I was thinking of Hospital Cover. Yes, more people do have Extras Cover (which has nothing to do with exempting you from MLS) than have Hospital Cover.

There are lenders who specialise in lending to "non-conforming" borrowers. They charge higher fees and interest rates to cover the higher risk. You should talk to a broker to see see if this is appropriate for you.