Advice needed on most suited employment status (working in Australia for UK company)

[Jer0me]

Hello there,

 

I will be relocating to Oz in January due to my girlfriend's new job.

My current UK company is interested in keeping and getting me to work from home in OZ.

The only issue here is that there are 2 options available to me I reckon:

> remain register as a 'normal' uk employee, paying taxes in the UK etc..My wages would be paid to my UK bank account.

> register myself as self-employed in Australia and work as a contractor, paying taxes in Oz. Wages paid to my UK or Australian bank account I am not sure..

 

This is still rather early stage and I need to do some more research on the matter but I was wondering if anyone had been in a similar situation and had any advice on what was the best solution.

 

Cheers

[Guest nm123]

If you are living in Australia you will be required to pay tax there, not the UK (although you may well be taxable in both locations if you remain tax resident in the UK and become tax resident in Australia). You could also put your company at all sorts of tax risks if you work in Australia on a UK employment contract without an official assignment/secondment.

 

I work for a big UK telecoms company and look after our relocating expats... I've asked to be relocated myself and will effectively resign from the UK company and take up a new employment contract with the Australian entity of our company. I lose my UK T&Cs and go on to Aussie T&Cs. This is probably the "cleanest" way to do things.

 

However, it would be worth talking to your company's HR dept to see if they have an international assignment policy or if there is an Australian branch of your company if you could switch to be employed by them. International assignments can be expensive and are usually business-driven rather than personally driven. Saying that though, if you can justify that the cost of replacing you is more than the cost of sending you to Oz on a local contract or an international assignment you might just be in luck!

 

Let me know if you want more info! Good luck!

 

PS. If you let me know what company you work at, I'd probably have an idea if you have an IA policy.. It's a funny little niche sector this relocation business so we all kind of know what most other big companies are doing to look after their globally mobile staff!

[Guest wanderer]

Hi Jer0me,

It may not be quite as simple as just

I will be relocating to Oz in January due to my girlfriend's new job.

My current UK company is interested in keeping and getting me to work from home in OZ.

 

For to be working here you'll need to have the appropriate visa and unless you are on the Gf's visa as a secondary applicant, your need to look at options that'll allow you to legally work, ie. getting on to her visa or perhaps a WHV if you're young enough, seeing about an Employer Sponsor visa via your own company, maybe a business visa and you can check out which if need be starting with Workers - Visas & Immigration WHV under Visitors.

 

It may in fact be easiest to just stay an employee in the UK, on extended paid leave here doing your work from home as you say without pay.

If you're not employed and being paid here I'd expect there'll be a way that your company can avoid you paying tax here for I've known of other people working in Australia with salaries being paid to them overseas and no taxation implications here.

 

Your company should be willing to make some enquiries with a taxation accountant here in Australia to determine what arrangements need to be made and it could be perhaps even a lump sum being paid prior to your leaving UK or a split with one before and another after your return.

 

On the visa side of things you could then apply for a 12 months tourist visa or the WHV if eligible.

[Jer0me]

Apologies for the late reply on this, I've been away from the internet for some time (chlling out in Thailand )

I was accepted as Defacto on my gf's 457 business visa so as far as being allowed to work in oz I am ok.

I am now in Australia and your feedback has certainly given me some food for thoughts. I need to consider my options now.

Thank you both for the useful advice!

[Guest nm123]

How long did the 457 take? I'm waiting for mine right now!

 

Good luck with your plans

[Jer0me]

Waiting for our 457 visa was absolute agony to be honest.

The sponsoring company applied for their side of the visa and it was approved within a couple of days.

We didn't go through an agent and did our bit online. When we first applied we got a response in like 2-3 days asking for proof of defacto relationship which we gave but then after that nothing, we thought they would be asking for more stuff gradually but they didn't. After a while (a couple of months maybe - at first we didn't want to contact them too much in case they felt we were trying to pressure them) we started emailing them asking if there was any news and if they needed anything else but we were getting very evasive replies. So in the end we just started firing them everything we thought they would need. We just needed to see things moving as a LOT of things depended on that decision.

 

We started the process early August and we finally got a reply a couple of days before christmas saying that they needed a proof of insurance, we took a cheap travel insurance with Virgin, the day after sending that they sent us the Visa. My gf was starting her job early January.

I know what you must be going through mate but hang in there, it will come

[Guest nm123]

Eek - mine was only submitted on 11 Jan - we fly on 9 Feb, hopefully it will be ok (we're using an agent)...

 

Well done on getting yours - sounds like a right palaver!