Ken

7 hours ago, Nemesis said:

A friend of mine had a 3 year ban from Aus (not for over-staying).

During that 3 years I reckon he entered Spain at least 5 times for short visa-free periods. Never got stopped, no issues at all.

Not for over-staying? What other things to do they give a 3-year ban for? 

On 04/06/2024 at 15:57, paulhand said:

“business visitor activity: 

(b)  does not include either of the following activities:

(i)  an activity that is, or includes, undertaking work for, or supplying services to, an organisation or other person based in Australia;

(ii)  an activity that is, or includes, the sale of goods or services directly to the general public.

Note:    An example for paragraph (b) is making a general business enquiry of an organisation based in Australia and also undertaking work for the organisation as part of investigating a business opportunity“

I make no comment on the tax implications. 

I've highlighted what I think is the important part. If you are working for and getting paid by your UK employer and not your UK employer's Australian arm it's not going to be an issue in the short term. Obviously, you can't do it long term but exactly how long before (because you are working in Australia) you should have become a (temporary) tax resident isn't spelt out. The ATO stress far more the other rules of tax residency such as where you've set up a home rather than whether or not you are doing any work.

13 minutes ago, Marisawright said:

@Andrew from Vista Financial, are you aware she's asking what their UK tax liability will be after they have moved to the UK?

I believe that's why he's asking the question. If it's a lifetime income stream it can't be changed so will have to be taxed in the UK. If an Account Based Pension it can be changed so there is the option of taking it all before moving to the UK and not being taxed in the UK at all (depending on how the money is subsequently invested).

4 hours ago, Marisawright said:

One thing I thought of:  is it possible to get the pension paid directly into a UK bank account, instead of going into an Australian bank account first?

I ask because if you have any funds or investments in Australia, they will be liable for Australian tax.  It's not a lot -- you just let the bank know you are living permanently overseas and they deduct 10% tax at source, and that's that.   But it's an extra hassle you could avoid.

That only applies if it's an interest earning account otherwise there wouldn't be any tax to deduct. Even if you could get the money paid direct to a UK bank account I would advise to avoid that as the exchange rate your UK bank will give you will not be the best. If you keep the money in an Australian account you could wait for a good rate.

Another option is to have it paid to a Wise account (it has a BSB and account number just like any Australian bank account).

On 30/05/2024 at 15:51, Alan Collett said:

If you are residing in Australia and the income is taxable in Australia - ie you aren't a temporary tax resident (as defined) - you disregard the UK personal allowance when working out the taxable amount for Aus tax purposes.

Best regards.

But then they'd have an Australian Tax Free allowance of $18,200 to play with.

6 minutes ago, jimmyay1 said:

so glad i don't have to really care about the minutiae of UK politics any more. that's one benefit of living overseas. 

Yes, I just had to google "Rayner capital gains tax" to find out who on earth Rayner is and what Blue Manna was referring to.

2 minutes ago, FirstWorldProblems said:

Sending a message to other member countries that if you leave, you'll want to come back perhaps?  And we'll accept you back, but on lesser terms than you had, and you'll do it because it's still better than being outside the worlds largest trading bloc.

They'll like the message "that if you leave, you'll want to come back", but I'm not sure they'll want to send the message "we'll accept you back" (even if it's on worse terms) because if countries know there will be an option to come back, leaving become a less scary choice.

On 26/05/2024 at 15:50, Bulya said:

Long-term it’s inevitable.  

I think it's far from inevitable that the EU will ever want the UK back. What's in it for them?

21 hours ago, Cheery Thistle said:

This is a bit complex…..I will be leaving my civil service post after completing a fixed term contract with 2 years service. This means I am not entitled to a CS pension (I think) as their cut off is 2 years. 
 

From what I read online it’s more or less impossible to transfer my CS pension out to an Aus super fund, am I right? Related to QROPS rules?
 

Is there any way I can transfer my CETV without losing the employer contributions? Only other option is to take a refund of my own contributions (which is annoying to say the least). 
 

Also can you set up an Aus super fund without having a job? Or is it all employer based? 

Is your CS Pension a defined contribution or a defined benefit? If the later, it's probably a bad idea to transfer it. Take it as a pension when you retire. Yes, it'll be taxed but do you expect to have a huge income when you retire? If not, there won't be much tax to pay.

On 23/05/2024 at 17:36, FirstWorldProblems said:

It’s going to get better.  
 

There won’t be an instant improvement in public services because of the twin headwinds of 1) the incredibly high cost of servicing the interest on the UK’s national debt (10% of all government spending goes here) and 2) the dramatic slowdown of GDP growth.   I fear undoing the damage is the work of a generation.  Hopefully the country and the electorate can be long sighted enough to hold the course.  
 

What will change instantly is an improvement in policy.  We wont be subject any more to a constantly changing government area of focus where they waste money and effort to appeal to a small fringe of voters they (mistakenly) believe to be sufficient to keep them in power, all whilst failing to do the basics. 
 

With that will come a cessation of the kind of division and hate-stoking we’ve endured from our government and that has to be a better environment in which to live.  
 

Whilst I find Labour 2024 to be rather uninspiring (with the exception of a handful of impressive female MP’s in  shadow cabinet roles), I do find them to be sensible and they seem to have policies for the betterment of the people (as opposed to the gaslighting the other mob do). A moderate government doing sensible things with a long term plan would be good for the U.K.   

An obviously this is the beginning of the reversal of Brexit which is the  most impactful single thing we Brits can do to impact prosperity.  But with polls showing that 1/3 of people still support being out of the EU, a few years of honest PR around the benefits is needed. People don’t like having things done to them. We want people feeling positive about it.  
 

I shall by then be living in Australia watching with interest!

You may be right that Labour 2024 are sensible, but they won't remain in place. The looney left will take over the Labour party once again and by 2028 they'll be kicked out and replaced by the Conservatives again. Nothing will be achieved in the interim.

Elsewhere on the Gold Coast (Coombabah Lakelands Conservation Area)

Some photos of Gold Coast. All taken from the SkyPoint Observation Deck.

22 hours ago, Nemesis said:

Having been an immigrant myself I can only feel sympathy for the alleged "planeloads" arriving every week. So many of them will find the place doesn't suit them, they are homesick, things don't work out as they planned - just as the same as many people moving to Australia feel.

I was one who stayed for the money and the job - but I had a long-term alm, and I also knew that I could never get a job paying that level in the UK. I simply couldn't afford to move back to the area I wanted to live in, or to have a decent lifestyle, if I'd come back sooner. I'm not rolling in it now, but I'm much better off then I would've been if I'd come a few years ago,

I sometimes wonder if I'm the only one to take a pay cut to move to Australia. But I guess that's City of London salaries for you.

On 16/05/2024 at 18:06, welljock said:

I did say that, it was around 2000/2001, if you were already on the parent's passport the UK didn't require it to change until the adult passport expired.

If the OP is 21 he probably would have required a passport to get to Australia at 3.

I looked it up. The actual date of change was 5 October 1998 (so you weren't far off) and since (as you've said) children who were on passports issued before that date could continue to travel on their parents' passports until they expired, there could still have been some using them as late as 2008.

But there's no way someone who is now 21 would ever have been on their parent's British passport.

On 02/05/2024 at 05:56, Amber Snowball said:

That’s what I thought. Yes NHS number from birth and it stays with you. Thank you kindly! 

No, the NHS number doesn't stay with you from birth but only until they update the computer system. I can still remember my old (alphanumeric) NHS number but I was never able to remember the (numeric only) NHS number that they replaced it with in the 1990s (because the new-fangled computer system, which they scrapped halfway through implementation, couldn't cope with alphanumeric numbers).

2 hours ago, Bulya said:

Agree on Xmas a little but yes the rest doesn’t match life here 

Yes, Christmas lights at 5pm against a dark UK sky as you head home from work are completely different (and far more uplifting) to those in Australia where it's going to remain bright and sunny for hours.

18 hours ago, Marisawright said:

Good for you.  Feeling the way you do, moving back sounds like the right decision for you.  That "something missing" feeling will never go away, otherwise. 

Unfortunately for many people that "something missing" feeling never goes away even when they move to the UK.

On 04/05/2024 at 00:43, AliG said:

Agree with all that, but....  when you offset its usually for the same type of tax - ie if you pay UK income tax on rental earnings in UK then you can offset that against any income tax that would be due in Aus... the bit that I don't know if you can offset different types of tax: when you withdraw form a SIPP in the UK you may be subject to income tax in UK and then CGT in Aus.

This sounds like a question for @Alan Collett

In Australia CGT is part of income tax. It's in the UK that CGT is a different tax from income tax. Despite that you can (normally) offset the CGT paid in the UK against the income tax due in Australia (although you will have to discount it 50% if you've claimed the 50% discount on the gain in Australia).

On 03/05/2024 at 08:12, Wanderer Returns said:

That's good to know. Is that regardless of whether you make those withdrawals monthly, or as a one-off withdrawal at the tax year?

If you are in receipt of a pension the rules are different than for lump sums. Taking a lump sum every month risks the payments being interpreted as a pension so I'd strongly advise against doing that.

That said I'm not aware of anything in written or case law that specifically says taking a lump sum every month either does or does not make it a pension, but even if you win you don't want to be the one who has to go to court to create the case law.

I should also spell out that when I said "any further lump sum withdrawals" I mean after the most recent growth in the fund has been accounted for. Just because you've paid the tax on all the growth at one point doesn't mean that's all you'll ever have to pay, as the money left in the fund should continue to grow.

2 hours ago, Wanderer Returns said:

Just to clarify, if I was to make further withdrawals as lump sums rather than taking them as a pension, I'd only get taxed on the growth in the fund? And the best time to take a lump sum would be in March so my provider wouldn't withhold any (or very little) tax, and I wouldn't need to reclaim it from the HMRC. Is this correct?

Yes, once you've been taxed on all the growth in the fund any further lump sum withdrawals are treated as withdrawals of capital which are tax free.

3 hours ago, Wanderer Returns said:

Hi, I want to take a lump sum from my UK SIPP.

I've read that Australia taxes the growth since you became a permanent resident. In my case this is roughly 50%. Using some arbitrary figures, if the value of my SIPP is now £150,000 then the growth part would be about £50,000.

So if I took a 25% lump sum (which would be tax-free in the UK), would I be taxed on just that amount (i.e. £37,500), or would I be required to pay tax on the growth of the whole fund - the full £50,000?

Secondly, is there anything I can do to make the above process more tax efficient?

Thanks in advance.

As Andrew as said you'd be taxed on the £37,500. If you withdrew £50,000 utilising both the 25% tax free and your UK tax free allowance (assuming you don't have any other UK income) then it would be tax free in the UK but you'd be taxed on the full £50,000 in Australia.

The following year if your Pension Plan didn't grow at all, then if you took another £12,500 lump sum using your UK tax free allowance then that £12,500 would be tax free in Australia too. If on the other hand your Pension Plan had grown by another £5,000 then £5,000 would be taxable and £7,500 tax free.

If, however, you chose to take the 75% as a Pension rather than as additional lump sums then it would normally all be taxable income in Australia (so you lose out on getting anything tax free). You can however apply to get the payments paid tax free from the UK with an NT tax code without needing to worry about the annual allowance.

Pay attention to the timing of when you take lump sums. If you take a lump sum in April, only 1/12th of your annual allowance will be available and you'll need to claw back the overpayment at the year-end (you can only get an NT tax code for pensions, not lump sums). Furthermore, the payment will be in the year ended 30th June in Australia and not in the following year, and you'll probably still be waiting for your UK tax refund in June of the following year.

I don't know if UK pension funds allow the 25% lump sum to be paid in more than one payment. If they did, getting it paid in two instalments (say one in June and one in July) would offer a tax saving, as of course would waiting until you are retired when you don't have any other income and have a large tax free amount due to SAPTO.

If you are still working and paying a high tax rate you might want to consider paying the lump sum into Super where it will be taxed at 15% rather than your marginal tax rate.

On 22/03/2024 at 19:57, calNgary said:

but throwing glass bottles is on another level and not something ive heard of happening much.

I doubt many of them can afford to waste the 10 cents.

12 hours ago, Tulip1 said:

I couldn’t either.  That’s a very depressing photo.  Those houses won’t win awards for their kerb appeal that’s for sure.  

Actually, if you crouch down and photograph them from the kerb, they probably will look better than they do in that aerial shot.

22 hours ago, technophobic said:

Does anybody know if Q9 on the split year form SA109 only applies to the UK part of the year?

I think it applies to the whole year but don't over stress it because it's not relevant. That question is only relevant if you're trying to claim you are not UK resident. If you are claiming split year treatment (by putting an X in box 3) you can't have claimed to be non-resident for the whole year (by putting an X in box 1).

3 hours ago, Bob Jones said:

We have my Dad staying with us on a 5yr parent VISA so temporary resident, he was bereaved in Covid and left on his own. 

He sold his hime, brought over his money because he's entitled to no state support, so if he goes into care or needs treatments above health insurance levels, he will self-fund.  No assets left in the UK and he now has a will in Australia.

If he should unexpectantly die here, will he need to go through probate in the UK or Australia?

Probate (if it's needed) would be in Australia as that's where his assets (and will) are. If he still had assets in the UK it could need to be done in both countries. Probate isn't always needed. It comes down to whether or not any of the organisations that hold his assets need to see the grant of probate before they release the funds.