Philip

If it's your only/main home, as far as I know, you still get private residence relief, and no CGT for the last 9 months. Plus even if you then acquire another home you can nominate it as your main home (provided it still genuinely remains your home). Obviously everyone should check the rules for their own situation. In Australia it seems that non-residents don't get any relief even if they lived in their home for 30 years but sell it on the day after they leave Australia This is a new thing from a few years ago.

I would think a $69 guy in a shopping mall may not be an expert on complex matters relating to foreign income/assets I've received quotes of $2000-$3000 to provide tax advice and help with preparing returns involving both UK and Australia.

I've realised that the ATO pages I was reading are under the "business" section, but the examples of Tom, Lisa and Eleanor don't sound like businesses to me. Just look at these https://www.ato.gov.au/Business/Foreign-exchange-gains-and-losses/Forex-realisation-events/#Forexrealisationevent1 https://www.ato.gov.au/Business/Foreign-exchange-gains-and-losses/In-detail/Forex-elections/ How many hours did smart minds waste on coming up with this rubbish instead of doing something more productive... AUSTRAC certainly knew about it but they probably don't have the time or staff to query everything. AUSTRAC has asked some of my relatives to explain their large transfers into and out of Australia before, but from what they said it was quite simple to provide the information.

I have been reading the forex pages on the ATO website which are extremely complex and hard to understand. Suppose I own a UK property outright and sell it for £500,000. Suppose it is fully covered by the exemptions for main home in both countries so no CGT. I become an Australian resident before the property is sold. When I exchange contracts the exchange rate is A$1.9 so $950,000. When the transaction is settled the exchange rate is A$2 so $1 million. Information on the ATO website indicates that I would have made a "profit" of $50,000 since signing the contract, which is taxable? Is that right? Basically wiping out my personal allowance and tax offsets and potentially pushing me into the medicare levy surcharge band etc etc even though in GBP terms I haven't made anything. I get the £500,000 into my bank account on the day of completion, but then I wait a few days before sending it to Australia (not because I think the rate is going to rise, but just because I'm sleeping / busy and the time difference makes it hard to get things done quickly). By that time the exchange rate has risen to $2.05. Does this mean I make a further $25,000 taxable profit? There is an exemption for foreign currency held in bank accounts up to a total of $250,000 with a temporary higher threshold of $500,000. So it sounds like holding £500,000 even for a few days is not covered by this. Of course it could go the other way where I make an AUD loss despite not losing any GBP but it appears this can only be offset against "true" AUD gains? Have I understood correctly or incorrectly?

Oh right, I never noticed that before thanks Another thing I learned today is that keeping a UK licence past the date of "administrative validity" ie the date printed on the front is actually an offence under the Road Traffic Act 1988

So, when I got my NSW licence, my GB licence had been issued more than 3 years prior, so I got a full one straight away. My wife recently had to update her photo on her GB licence, so the issue date is only a few months in the past. Does anyone know what we can get from the DVLA to show that she first obtained the licence more than 10 years ago? Or can the Service NSW people do an online check now?

I was considering this question. The British passport application only asks for valid foreign passports and defines valid as not having been cancelled (so an expired passport that was not cancelled would seem to count). If you are in the UK, and submit your Australian passport for (overseas) renewal, the high commission cancels it immediately. You could then truthfully submit a British passport renewal application declaring you have no foreign passports. Anecdotally, HMPO appears not to "remember" that you've previously submitted foreign passports as part of UK passport applications. Also, when using the 1 week Fast Track service at offices other than London and Peterborough, it appears that HMPO staff only photocopy the photo page of your non-British passport in B&W and don't care about the rest; while a regular application by post asks you to photocopy every page in colour.

My uncle has graciously offered me the use of his car when we move to Australia in a few weeks - he is coming to Europe on holiday around the same time, so he said he will park it at SYD and meet me in London to give me the keys. He is the kind of guy who just hopes for the best. I asked him about the car insurance and he only said "don't worry it'll be all right". In the UK if I want someone else to be able to drive my car I have to specifically add their name to my insurance, and I think that is the case with most policies here (at least I've never been able to drive my friends' cars in the UK, even when it would have helped them, because getting me insured was more expensive than getting a taxi). Is it different in NSW?

Ah ok, so strata is more like UK "share of freehold"?

The UK leasehold system has been described as "medieval" / "the last remnant of feudalism". Many people say that because of this they would never buy a UK flat, not to mention leasehold houses. Having owned a UK flat in the past, I have experienced this first hand, with no end of problems / overcharging / lack of communication, by the property management company as well as the freeholders. Detractors of leasehold in the UK have told me that strata ownership "works much better" in other countries. Now that our move is becoming a reality, I am trying to learn more about this. Obviously there must be a way to recognise that blocks of flats have communal areas that require maintenance to be shared. But I am struggling to understand whether Australian strata title is materially different from how leasehold flats work in the UK?

I got an NSW licence about 10 years ago despite not living in Australia. I contacted the (then) RTA who said that as an Australian citizen, I could get one as long as I had some sort of address proof - this was achieved as I was on my parents' health insurance, which covered a child living overseas up to age 25. They copied my GB licence and gave it back (if I hadn't had it for 3 years, they would have given me a P1 or P2). In those days the RTA printed them on the spot, so I rented a car right after getting it and later that day the police stopped me for a random breath test! I asked for the policemen's opinions and they said as long as when I'm in Australia I'm living at, or have access to the address on the NSW licence they didn't see a problem, but if I showed the GB licence they would ask for my passport, and if I showed an Australian passport they would want to see flight tickets or similar showing that I was only in the country for a short period. I also spoke to a DVLA employee at a social event off the record and they said while the UK doesn't want you to have multiple licences from different countries, it's only because people would use them to spread out points and avoid bans, particularly if they use different names. If you've never had any offences then they don't really care. And apparently you only get fined for a wrong address on a UK licence if you fail to respond to something sent in the post because you don't have access to that address - but the police/CPS/magistrates may have a different view to the DVLA.

Ok, thanks. I made some general inquiries with an accountant who says if the assets are held in a non resident trust then in general there are no Australia tax obligations until transferred into personal names i.e. drawdown, which is what I guess Alan was getting at.

Yes this is what I'm asking about - do you know this for certain and how? I will pay for personalised financial advice later, this post is meant to be just a general question. Right but, that should be irrelevant to the tax situation. For example I have a UK savings account and (from other forums) if I tell the bank I will be moving to Australia they will close the account as they "don't allow" non-UK residents to have accounts. But if the bank didn't know and I earned interest, it would be taxable in Australia, same as interest from a UK bank which did know and did allow foreign resident accounts. And a broker can't just close a SIPP and return the money to you, so not really sure how that would work.

Hi Alan, Thanks for your replies so far but I do not understand the implications of that. I did not expect the SIPP to be resident in Australia anyway, as it is a UK product that I took out in the UK. I know pension rules can be complex and paid advice would be necessary taking into account our whole situation. However I just wanted to ask generally - as currently we are UK tax residents, we have been trading various shares and ETFs with the money in the SIPP and all the gains/dividends stay there and can't be touched until UK retirement age and there are no tax implications once our contributions have been paid in. But when we become Australian tax residents, can this continue?

I have no idea... but looking through my documents it appears to be "Sippdeal Trustees"

They are held with AJ Bell

We will be moving to Australia at the end of the year. We have UK SIPPs in which we have been trading shares and ETFs etc. Obviously, nothing needs to be done with regards to HMRC. However regarding the ATO, all information I can find talks about lump sums and drawdowns - but this is 25 years in the future for us. As Australian tax residents what is the position on trading within a SIPP? It would seem perverse to have to pay tax on any gains / dividends when the money is not accessible. I also can't find any straightforward answer on the ATO's position on foreign accumulating ETFs - ideally you would just pay CGT on the total gain when sold, but somehow I feel it might not be so simple. Would using income ETFs be better as the amounts of dividends and gains are easily knowable?

Thanks for posting this, coincidentally at just the right time as I was about to start a new thread. I applied for my son's citizenship by descent 2 months ago and just got a "request for more information" as they want to know how I became a British citizen - I was wondering why that is relevant. On seeing this article, it made sense they want to check people didn't acquire other citizenships before 2002 (as they evidently didn't check for the first son of the man in the article), but the online form doesn't specifically ask for this information, it only says provide evidence of the citizenship like a passport. However reading more carefully, the article says that only people over 18 would have lost their Australian citizenship in this way, and I wasn't over 18 in 2002. Is there another factor relevant to my case or perhaps they just haven't put together that this wouldn't have applied to me (not that I became British before 2002 anyway, but they don't know that yet).

...except for a brief period in May (?) 2021 when it was illegal to travel from India to Australia...

British citizenship is only automatically passed on to children in some cases. Some children would need to be registered as British citizens first, and some children of British citizens may not be eligible to be British at all unless other hoops are jumped through. Regarding entering the UK, firstly anyone who makes it through the e-gates at airports/Eurostar stations won't have any trouble. I have made enquiries to UK immigration and the consensus answer was that they would prefer British citizens to enter on a British passport, but there was no requirement to. If coming to the UK on a holiday, it doesn't matter as you will be leaving within the 6 months stay "granted". If intending to stay longer then the foreign passport might be recorded as overstaying, which could lead to issues when using that passport to enter the UK in the future. However, it's a bit of a mess because the UK has no departure emigration checks and instead collects API from airlines. But API is for entry to the destination country. For example, consider an Australian-American citizen who enters the UK using their Australian passport, then departs to the USA - their US passport details will be recorded in eBorders and there won't be a record of the Australian passport leaving. Not really relevant to this forum, but if you're an British+EU/EEA/Swiss (except Irish) citizen, you may face trouble trying to enter the UK on your EU/EEA/Swiss passport, especially if you're travelling with a spouse/partner/children, because immigration would expect you to be on the EU settlement scheme. Regarding entering Australia, I know of several Australian citizens who have lied to obtain tourist visas on their foreign passports, then entered using SmartGate without any problems. I don't believe there are any penalties for doing something like this, despite making the false declaration.

Thanks all. A question on migration agents - I suppose different levels of service are available, but do you have to do everything yourself online and the agent only looks through your documents before you upload them, or is it possible for agents to access your account and do some (or even all) of the application for you?

I am an Australian citizen and starting to look into the 309/100 process for my British wife. I am approaching this from a UK perspective because I helped an Australian friend apply for the equivalent UK visas several years ago. The big differences seem to be that Australia doesn't care about what happens after you're in Australia (if you get the 100 straight away), but really cares about proving the relationship. To demonstrate a genuine relationship, the UK wanted to see one document for the six 3-month periods in the preceding 2 years, addressed to the couple either separately or together, but the couple just submitted a photo of them doing something together for each of the 6 years they had been married, and that was sufficient. For Australia, it looks as if you need to submit some essays and get other people to write essays about you... also we only have one joint account and many sole accounts, and we just treat them as belonging to each other (which is against the T&Cs of the banks), but how do you prove that? For the UK application, it was absolutely vital that the sponsor had a certain salary for a specified time period just before the application, and they had to provide a floor plan of their house showing that there were sufficient bedrooms for the whole family. Australia seems to only make the sponsor sign a form saying they will support the applicant financially and with accommodation, but doesn't ask for any proof? Am I missing something? The issue that I thought we might have, is that we lost our jobs because of covid and decided to look after our child full-time. We weren't going to think about looking for jobs until we arrive in Australia, as we have lots of money saved up anyway and my wife's parents are generously giving us some inheritance early. However, it looks as though we don't really need to mention any of this in the application?

Thanks for your reply, yes we would definitely use a migration agent if she wishes to attempt resuming her PR.

In 1988 my parents and I applied to migrate from the UK to Australia and we were granted PR immediately from the day we arrived. My dad and I became citizens in 1990 and then we moved to another country. My mum did not meet the residency requirement at the time we left, so she could not become a citizen when we did. After that we only visited Australia for short holidays, she would have used her initial visa to enter which was probably valid until 1993. When this visa expired she applied for an RRV from outside Australia shortly, and received a 5-year RRV. She continued doing the same after each visa expiry, and she was repeated granted 5-year RRVs, even though she would only have spent about 2-3 months inside Australia across each visa. In between, she would have had no visa at all. In 2015 or so her final RRV expired and she hasn't been to Australia again. My first question is, is she still technically a permanent resident of Australia? If not, when exactly was this status lost, was it lost every time her RRV expired and then regained when she received a new RRV? (We wish to know if Australia still considers her a PR for a matter relating to another country, not relevant to this forum. Not sure how easy it is to get a concrete answer out of Aus immigration.) My second question is, based on the replies to other RRV threads in this forum, it sounds like she would have difficulty getting another RRV now, because she hasn't spent much time in Australia ever, and her only tie is me being a citizen. I am also curious as to whether the rules changed in the past few years, because it sounds like she would only get a 3-month RRV if granted at the moment, yet she always received a 5-year RRV in the past. Furthermore in my searching I came across this post https://www.munrodoig.com.au/recovering-permanent-residency-after-a-long-absence-from-australia/ which claims that someone was granted an RRV, and extremely quickly to boot, despite having tourist visas in the interim. So perhaps my mum might still get an RRV quite easily, although covid may have played a part in that case and it is less of a factor now. (My mum never has never held a tourist visa.) Many thanks.