Marisawright

Well with Abbot and co in charge of Oz now, who knows what direction pension laws will be going. I do agree though Jen85, 25 years in country should be more then enough years worth of tax, medicare and other services paid to the gov.

Take a look around Europe - most countries are increasing the retirement age and making it more difficult to get a pension. Australia could do much worse than it's proposing. Look at the UK - your pension is based on years worked, which is why my sister is stuck in an unhappy marriage: she married early and didn't work most of her life, so she can't get a decent pension on her own.

The bottom line is this: if you leave your home country, there must have been a reason. It's not something you do on a whim, after all. So there's no point in going back, unless that reason no longer applies.

If there's any doubt at all, I strongly recommend you stick it out until you all qualify for citizenship. That way, if you want to come back, you can. Whereas if you leave and lose your permanent residency, you'll NEVER be able to live in Australia again. You're so close now! You don't have to give up your British citizenship to be an Aussie, so it's a win-win.

If you're a British citizen and can meet the financial requirement, you can apply for her to come with you on a spouse visa. Residency doesn't matter - it's enough that you're intending to relocate back permanently. That will get her entry for two years, after which she can apply for permanence. There is a minimum length of relationship but I can't recall what it is.

We're in the same situation. From what we've been able to find out, the tax implications can be really nasty - I'll be interested if anyone is able to give better news.

First, you'll lose your tax free threshold in Australia! That means ALL your income from Australian sources will be taxed. Also, you won't get the 50% discount rate on capital gains - you'll have to pay tax on 100% of the amount. That alone is going to be painful if you have a reasonable portfolio.

You won't be taxed again on that income by the UK - but if you have a pension from your superannuation, they'll tax that.

I'm assuming you just have a straightforward share portfolio, not a self-managed super fund. If you do have a SMSF, it will be taxed at 47% if you're a non-resident.

You can get around that by taking your super as a lump sum and moving it all to the UK, or possibly transferring it to a UK pension fund (haven't looked into how that's done). Also of course, you could sell up your share portfolio and start a new one in the UK. I can understand why you're reluctant to do that (capital gains etc).

There is no formal agreement - all that means is that there's no special agreement re tax, social security etc. It doesn't prevent the pension being paid.

The big change is that the qualifying age is going up from 25 years to 35 years. If you've lived in Australia for less than 35 years you can only get a pro-rated pension.

We looked into this exhaustively and I agree, it's confusing.

If you're over 60 and take money from your Australian super fund, it gets special treatment, and is not taxable in Australia - as you know. If you have moved to the UK, any money you draw from your super is classed as income. It gets no special treatment.

To quote:

"The general rule is that where double taxation agreement is available, the country of the pensioner's residence has taxing right in relation to pensions sourced from another country. For example, a UK resident receives an allocated pension from an Australian fund. No tax is payable by the Australia fund, tax on the pension is payable instead by the pensioner in the UK."

http://www.ngssuper.com.au/assets/Downloads/Retiring-Overseas.pdf