Ken

If you are a non-resident with Australian income then you are required to lodge a tax return. There is an exemption for interest and royalties on which the 10% withholding tax has been withheld.

The pay gap is irrelevant to the UK old age pension. It's based on the number of years of contributions not the amount contributed and the years of contributions include years receiving state benefits when there may be zero actual contributions being paid.

If you get a bill from another state, you send it to the Queensland government, and they pay it. Incidentally I always had ambulance cover when living in Victoria. If cost about $23 per quarter for the family. Well worth the peace of mind. You don't want to be wondering "do I really need an ambulance" in an emergency just because of the expense.

The OP is moving to Brisbane. Ambulance cover isn't necessary in Queensland.

If you are making a profit, or can show that even though you are making a loss it is an arms-length price, then yes. But don't forget the requirement that the mortgage was to purchase the property. If you refinance to release money to spend on other things, that interest is not deductible whoever you've rented to. Also, to qualify as an investment property neither you nor your dependents can live there, so your 'family member" can't be a dependent (but if they're living independently and able to pay the rent then logically they couldn't be a dependent).

No, it can still qualify, in fact if you are making a profit, I don't see you have any choice about declaring the income, but if you are making a loss you would need to prove the rent you are receiving is an arms-length price.

Yes, but it would only be a one-year RRV.

Yes, but you said you only wanted to release about 100K. If you sold the property you'd release the full amount some of which you could use for the deposit on a BTL property in Australia. The interest on the mortgage for the remainder would be fully tax deductible as it would be being used to buy the property. If you were to find a lender to refinance the BTL property in the UK, none of the interest would be tax deductible as the loan is not being used to purchase the property but is for a family member. In either case you could end up with a mortgage the same size as the amount you are lending to the family member, but the mortgage would be looked at completely differently for tax.

If you are doing this then make sure they really are different banks. There are several banks that are groups trading under more than one name, but the guarantee only covers one $250K for the group regardless of the different names.

No, both countries tax you on your worldwide income which means it includes all of the income you earned while working in the other country while still tax resident in their jurisdiction. You do get to offset all the tax already paid in the other jurisdiction though.

Paul Hogan

Hard to see how anyone could ever succeed in being anything other than deemed to be a tax resident of both countries doing that. People have tried to claim they're not resident in either country - but it's always ended in tears and sometimes jail. The double taxation treaty does mean they'll avoid paying double the tax, but still leaves them paying the higher of the two. If they are OK with that and can afford to do it, then it's theoretically possible, especially if they have a job where they can work from home.

There is no "Student visa tax rate". The only visa with a separate tax rate is the Working Holiday Visa, students pay the same tax rates and get the same allowances as everyone else. The annual tax-free threshold is $18,200 ($350 per week), but that is reduced if you are not in Australia for the full tax year (but you still get about 60% of it even if you are only in the country for a month). There's also a low-income tax offset which means you don't pay any tax if your income is below $21,884 in a full year (you'll still get tax withheld if you're weekly paid and you earn more than $350 in any week, but you'll get the tax back at the end of the year).

It doesn't apply in this case, but there are many cases in which UK residents didn't have UK grades. Back in the EU days many parents lived in the UK while their children attended school elsewhere in Europe. The children's residency was determined not by where the children went to school, but upon where their parents lived.

Brookfield is in Brisbane itself. Brisbane isn't like Melbourne or Sydney where only the CBD is in the city and the rest of the Metro area comprises other cities. Brisbane is one big city.

Finding somewhere to rent is probably going to be a big headache. Rental vacancies are at all-time lows.

I've never understood the banks aversion to lending to the self-employed. Their income can be volatile, but they don't get made redundant or sacked and lose all their income overnight as so often happens with employed people. There is of course an exception with contractors that only have one customer - but they shouldn't really be considered self-employed in the first place.

If you are only intending to return to the UK "for a while" you will most likely not terminate your Australian residency and so will still be taxable in Australia. If however you are going to be spending a few years outside of Australia it might work, but there's a whole host of issues that could either make you still deemed to a resident of Australia or cost you more tax as a non-resident of Australia. You need to look closely at what assets that you'll have in Australia as well as well as what other ties you will have.

That's interesting. It would appear that the ATO have accepted that some categories of foreign disability war pensions are exempt from tax. It doesn't change the operation of the DTA though. In fact, they would have to be taxable in Australia for them to be exempted. The exemption is however not part of the DTA so it's entirely up to the UK whether or not they tax Australian disability war pensions received by UK residents.

IIRC where an exemption is given it only assumes that as a native English speaker you are at least a 6.5 on the IELTS scale, however for the CPA skills assessment you need to be at least a 7.0 and the only way to prove that is via a test.

Yes. They're not mentioned separately so will still count as a government pension as far as the DTA is concerned.

We are discussing a hypothetical Australian who is UK resident not an Italian or the national of any other country. What the UK-Italy DTA says or what DTA usually say is irrelevant. All that matters is what the UK-Australia DTA says: "Pensions (including government pensions) and annuities paid to a resident of a Contracting State shall be taxable only in that State." I think you'll find the words "(including government pensions)" may have been added to the sentence for the very reason that it is different from what a DTA "usually" says. But never rely upon what a DTA usually says, always read the specific DTA as they are all negotiated separately.

You appear to have missed the word "usually" near the beginning of the third paragraph. You can't rely on what a DTA usually says, you must use what the actual DTA between the two countries says. I've already given you the wording of the DTA that exists between the UK and Australia. The words "(including government pensions)" were inserted for a reason. Not all DTA are the same.

$500 for a backpacker tax return? That's unusually high for a backpacker as they normally have straight forward returns (and foreign income doesn't come into play). One thing you need to assess for a depreciation report is how long you intend to keep the property. If you are already planning to sell, it probably won't be worthwhile as all the depreciation you've claimed adds back into your capital gain when you sell. Of course, you'll get the 50% discount on the CGT, so you still get the benefit of half the depreciation, but the cost of the depreciation report means needs you to claim the depreciation for a few years to be worthwhile.

No, the double taxation agreement works the same way for both countries. Pensions are taxed only in the country where the pensioner lives, so an Australian who is resident in the UK would only be taxed in the UK on his Australian pension. "Pensions (including government pensions) and annuities paid to a resident of a Contracting State shall be taxable only in that State."