Ausvisitor

4 hours ago, Marisawright said:

You'll need proof of an Australian address so a holiday won't help.  As Tulip1 says, you can use your British debit and credit cards everywhere here, just like you would at home, so it's not a big deal.   If you have an account with Wise, then you can easily transfer larger amounts at reasonable cost if you need to (for rental deposits etc).  

Having an Australian bank account won't help you get credit, if that's what you're thinking.  Real estate agents don't care about your bank balance or where your money is, they want to know that you've got a job.    Australians don't lease their family car, as a rule, because leasing is an absolute rip-off over here (unless you can get a lease through work, called a 'novated lease').  If you can't afford to buy a car outright, then a car loan from a bank is the best bet (car finance from the dealer is a rip-off, too) -- and again, having a job is more important than having savings.  Reality is that you may have to settle for a cheap second-hand rattler until you get yourself settled. 

Agree and don't agree...

I agree that rental agents and car dealers care about the job not savings in general but...

If you have the cash to pay it all up front they don't care then. It's about risk. If you've bought the car outright you aren't a risk, if you've paid up front for 6 or 12 months for your house rent you aren't a risk.

People saying I've got cash in the bank but I'll pay you monthly are risky unless they've got a job as who knows how long that cash will stay there (yes I know you might lose you job tomorrow but proof you can get employed in AUS is important)

On 06/02/2024 at 09:34, palaceboy1 said:

I have a friend who has had her government ATO account hacked . The year end figures were altered and it triggered a AUS$3000.00 refund , the bank account was changed to UBank  (the ATO said that UBank were easy to set up accounts for scammers) .This happened last year . 

The ATO would know better than to say that, it's defamation and if they really did say it NAB (UBank's owner) would have already sued them

More likely your friend made up the bit about the ATO saying this so they didn't feel so bad 

It's much more difficult than it used to be (and it was never that simple anyways).

The UK has the same rules for incoming immigrants in bank account opening so it's not just Australia that is being difficult

Do you know anyone in Australia already? All you need to open online is your Australian residential address so just use theirs (some need a TFN - but you can get one of these in the same manner, use someone else's address)

Pearson the company that do the test make no mention of this being a possibility on their faqs - and they talk a lot about retakes and why your scores might go down from one test to another. So it might not be a thing.

That said the internet is full of education agents saying it might be possible, but equally lots of notes saying that a combined test isn't admissible for immigration reasons.

Maybe your immigration agent can help, they must have seen this issue before

1 hour ago, Marisawright said:

Good point.  If the OP had been an Australian, proposing to leave his company and continue working for them full-time, I'd have said the same thing.  Or a Brit proposing to do the same thing while staying in the UK.

However wouldn't the fact that he's only going to be with the company for a couple of months out of the whole tax year, make a difference?   

 

No, the loss of tax to the UK exchequer would be large and the employment agreement hasn't changed (in it's essence even if the legal construct has)

If they were moving from contract to employee there would be no issue as the tax take would increase, but the other way around it's significantly less

(Remember tax isn't just the employee the removal of the person from the workforce reduces the companies tax - well NI - bill 12.8% as well)

16 hours ago, Marisawright said:

True, I didn't want to dive into too much detail.  The main thing is that the OP is better off acting a a sole trader and it's not too scary a process.

No sensible well-run UK company should entertain employing an ex employee as a sole trader minutes after leaving.

It will open them up to all sorts of tax implications, equally even incorporating as a company won't solve the disguised employee issue this creates.

Whilst the method suggested does theoretically potentially remove some personal dual tax implications it opens up some murky corporate tax issues for both the OP and their client (I say client because if you think of them as your employer once you start contracting you've already failed the first test of being in business and not just an employee)

1 hour ago, LukeGw8921 said:

Was that transfer to your AUD wise account or GBP wise account?

Wise don't charge you to deposit your cash in the same currency.

It's only when you move it (either between internal pots or as a transfer to an external bank in another currency) that they charge.

The fee is the same regardless of which method you use to change currency in wise (I tried both)

Isn't that true of most migration agents? I'm sure even the agents who post regularly on these forums have people supporting them dealing with their caseloads that aren't registered agents.

The problem with transferring income from AUS to UK is that unless you can get the person paying you to pay direct to your wise account you break the link between earnings and receipt of money and no UK bank would then accept that as an earning income stream (look up the complex third party MLA laws that exist in the UK)

In answer to your specific points

1) a UK bank won't entertain self employed income until you've filled in a full year UK tax return and declared the income, so realistically you are looking at 2 years from arrival before it is helpful for a mortgage. Guarantor won't be of any use until your income is probable by tax returns

2) you can open a wise transfer account in a GBP currency, which you can transfer money into but I wouldn't transfer lots into this until you have a UK account to move it to

3) buying a car with cash is perfectly fine (but quite rare). The mortgage company won't consider it an asset though, it's just another thing you own. 

UK mortgages are harder to secure in large multiples of salary than an AUS one.

You will struggle at the moment to get more than a 3.5 times income mortgage offer.

So on your range of house you would need a mortgage of 160-280k

This would require a UK salary of 47k-80k GBP. I'm not sure a part time job will get you anywhere near that

Australia thinks it's interest rates on mortgages are high, the UK is higher.

We use up as our travel account because it doesn't charge overseas fees and almost every other AUS bank does.

It's pretty good and it has things similar to Monzo but not quite as good.

It's also wholly owned by Bendigo bank so it's a real bank not a money transfer system - Revolut - written by two Russians (hence why they are struggling to get their UK finance licence)

8 hours ago, Marisawright said:

However, that's irrelevant. Extras cover doesn't count towards exemption from the Medicare levy.    Also, you can get Extras cover on its own, without the hospital cover.   So you can't count it in the arithmetic at all.  

 

In my case I could. The medibank cover I have includes some level of dental/optical/other in the package. You can't buy the medical cover without also getting that base level of extras included (I suppose you could buy this was a great deal).

So the premium to me is discounted by the amount I would have spent on dental and medical (that they are covering)

I do agree with your premise here, but some health coverage just includes some extras anyway so it's not always a simple comparison 

14 hours ago, can1983 said:

Just a counter point last year we got stung with MLS of 1% of around $200,000 (couple)

That's $2000 extra tax

You cant get private medical insurance which makes you exempt from the MLS for $1k per person its at least twice or three times that

So id say private health cover to avoid MLS only really starts to make sense when the family income is nearly $300k

Yes (and no)...

If you need glasses or dental care, the benefits for those will almost certainly cover at least $1,000 per year for a couple, so it means that whilst in your example the tax is $2000,  

The cost for medical cover is around $3,500 for a couple, which makes cover actually cost $500.

Now if you've got good dental cover and cover for things like physio you can easily be getting treatments that you'd otherwise pay for covered to around $1,500 per year which makes the health cover better than free

Looking at it in terms of just tax saved isn't enough to work out value 

I'm not saying so much that I'm annoyed at the change, I'll still get nearly $5k more so that's a bonus (just not as much as promised)

It's the fact he promised in the manifesto, and countless times since that it would be wrong to wind back that change and the whole leadership agreed and promised they wouldn't.

How can we trust them now?

Just now, Ausvisitor said:

The tolls are a tax on poverty (or at least on the low to middle income earners).

The lower paid live in the outer west and south and all the tolls are from there into the city, the north and east (which are more affluent) don't have tolls to the city except the harbour Bridge (which you can avoid most of the time)

3 hours ago, FirstWorldProblems said:

Do you know how much they budget for tolls?  We clocked up $500 in two weeks last month during a visit based near castle hill.  

The tolls are a tad on poverty (or at least on the low to middle income earners).

The lower paid live in the outer west and south and all the tolls are from there into the city, the north and east (which are more affluent) don't have tolls to the city except the harbour Bridge (which you can avoid most of the time)

9 hours ago, tahm563 said:

Is the $3,956 for one person or your family? 

A couple 

Anyone else seething at the fact albanese lied and has rolled over and altered the stage 3 tax cuts despite promising he never would.

I thought he was different but he's as bad as all the others... At least ScoMo was blatantly obvious about being a liar and generally scummy.

5 minutes ago, Marisawright said:

I agree.   I've been treated in the public system a few times and if anything, I've felt the quality of care was better than in the private system.  If you take private health insurance, it's not because of concerns about treatment, it's more about avoiding the waiting lists.

As @Ausvisitor says, private health insurance is a no-brainer if you're earning over $90,000 a year (over $180,000 for a couple), because you'll be slugged a Medicare surcharge if you don't have it.  it's all explained in that link I gave. However if you are earning under that figure, it's a different story.  

Very true, when you ask a forum for advice on this sort of thing you also need to ask the people responding how much they earn (which obviously they won't normally say) because that's the single biggest determinant as to whether its worth it or not

(Well ok it's not, the biggest determinant is do you need the hospital cover, but you won't know that until way after you've made the decision to take out the cover)

One other thing in many states ambulance journeys are not free, the cost of a journey can easily get to $1,000 if you live a distance from the hospital. 

Stand alone ambulance insurance is around $450 for a family (and covered in most health care policies in the general premium) as a brit I never even considered an ambulance journey when Ill wouldn't be covered just by general taxation...

5 minutes ago, Cheery Thistle said:

I think $6k is not a lot, even a $500k mortgage is going to cost between $3-4k a month. So unless mortgage is low it doesn’t leave much for living. 
 

If you’ve paid the London mortgage off you should be quids in for buying something in Aus, at least you’ll have a big deposit if not enough to buy outright. 
 

From what you’re saying it’s a no-brainer to move. 

If they've paid off the London mortgage unless they lived in a hovel (and then even then hovels aren't cheap in town) then they will have their pick of pretty much anywhere in Sydney (that normal people live not Hollywood superstars and nepo-babies)

I have health insurance, it's a no-brainer. The basic cover I have is $3,956 a year, the MLS (read tax) I'd have to pay if I didn't have private cover is over $5,500

So healthcare is actually cheaper than not having it. Add in we get $400 opticians, $1800 dental and $900 other remedies (between us) if we claim everything the insurance is only $800 and saves $5.5k 

You'd have to be a fool in my situation not to take it...

1 hour ago, BendigoBoy said:

Don't do IELTS, mate; that'd be my advice. Do PTE.

As someone who did IELTS, TOEFL and PTE, PTE was far more rounded and true to life than the others.

 

IELTS is just a cash cow for its operators. It isn't unknown for those with Masters degrees in English language/lit to walk away with a 7 in writing despite hitting 9s on all other aspects. It's one for "learn by rote" rather than "actually use in real life" learners.

That happened to me, most annoyed that writing reports for a living and having a masters in English still only got me. 7.5 on IELTS writing

PTE taken the next week after finding out the IELTS result and passed all 90s

On 06/01/2024 at 10:29, Cheery Thistle said:

It’s the same for Sydney and the harbour bridge and opera house - they are synonymous! I don’t think you can really compare the price for the bridge climb and going up the tower. They are totally different . I think we paid about €75 for the 3 of us to go up in April 2022. Waited in a queue for over an hour in interesting weather. Then the whole thing is over pretty quickly. I think it’s quite expensive for what it is, especially if you have a couple of kids. But I think it’s a must-do at least once. I’ve done it so many times because I used to lead annual senior school Paris trips. Have done the climb on foot a few times (to cut waiting times) but wouldn’t do it with the 10 year old. I prefer the Tour Montparnasse. Not as iconic but has better views - you get to actually see the Eiffel Tower lit up from there if you go at night. 
To be honest if I went back to Paris I wouldn’t do the Eiffel Tower again unless I was with someone who hadn’t done it. 
 

Re: Bridge climb - my $, my bucket list, I’m not asking you to pay!! 

I find it interesting that when asked what is Australian the five things that get mentioned (and it's always these five):

1. Kangaroos

2. Koalas

3. Crocodile Dundee

4. Opera House

5. Harbour Bridge

The only place you can see all five in one day is Sydney, yet then people say Sydney isn't really Australia and I wouldn't want to live there... Go figure!

(Of course people can live where they want, I just find it odd that the things that are synonymous with Australia are in the place people say they don't want to be)

Management consultant is one of the more difficult Vetassess categories to satisfy.

They almost always (as Paul Suggested) expect a management consultant to be working with external clients.

Similarly with no actual consulting experience you will struggle to make the proof points needed

There are loads of other similar anzsco codes that would probably be a better fit.

I also find that the biggest test of if someone is actual a management consultant or not is if they are handling their application without help from an agent.

Given an MC is an expert for hire if they can't see the benefits in getting an expert involved they probably aren't very successful as a consultant either