Craigv

I have sold my house and have some cash to invest. I would ideally like to invest in Unit Trust's , OEIC's or Bonds in the UK and manage things from OZ but I don't know if you can do that or if you are better transferring money over and investing when I am in OZ.

I will be in Australia in 2 months time on a 457 with plans to be based there for good.

There are likely to be tax implications and I have no idea where to start.

Any advice on that and does anyone know of an impartial website in OZ similar to moneyfacts website we have in the UK giving you the best advice on investments ..

geordie downunder

Bloody stupid question,I have a long history of investing here,this is general advice and should NOT!!! colour your thinking,you have to go it alone and make your own decisions.Investing here any interest is a tax deduction at your marginal rate 30% 42% or 47% if income is produced or expected to be produced.If you want to believe that houses double every 10 years then you will double your money in 10 yrs .Stock market here has one of the highest returns over the last 100 yrs (source ABN-amro world markets, they are a dutch bank).The bank accumulation index gives a $1000 investment in 1980 to be now worth $46000,so a $100,000 investment is now $4.6 million,if you want to believe that will continue buy bank shares,they have been doubling roughly every 3 yrs for a long time now,(disclaimer, author has shares in most oz banks) Fully franked shares (Dividend imputation means the shares are tax paid at 30%,company tax rates here) are included in your tax return thus,say you have $700 in dividend income,they will carry $300 in tax credits so your gross income will increase by $1000 and the tax office will do the rest.The best advice I can give is nobody can predict the future so you may as well do it yourself.All financial professionals are commission based here so those words vested interest always come into play.As Warren Buffet says,if they knew what was going to happen they would be buying shares,not selling advice,sums up the financial industry nicely.As I said this is general advice and you really need to think for yourself.Another wonderful old saying -wealth is the bi-product of thinking.I should not have answered this as it is a silly question

Rabc

..........great to be so clever

Craigv

I know that ABN - Amro is a dutch bank. Now go and crawl back under you stone !!!

adriang

I can tell you what I did, which was to give me some flexibility for a 10 year stop over in the US and in Netherlands on my way to Australia.

I wanted to keep some money in Sterling, mainly to act as a safety net, and something that was in a strong currency, but could get access to pretty easily no matter where I am in the world.

I ended up putting some money into an 'off shore' back account, that is held with LLoydTSB on the Isle of Man. It is tax free, and I understand that the their constitution is that they will not divulge any details to any government.

I've got some kind of investment plan, where i can pay in a fixed amount, plus extras if I have a windfall like a bonus. I've also taken lump sums out, like when I needed to get some work done on a property. I think that if you contact your regular back, they can talk to you about this kind of thing, because my partner joined me later, as she was waiting for a redundancy payout, and when she got it, got advice from the Nat West, which seems to have worked well.

I intend to keep the same plan going when I arrive in Australia next month. It is doing well, in Sterling, and I can easily access if I need to.

Also, do a search on tax free offshore banking on yahoo.co.uk, loads of hits.

Note, I'm not in finance, in fact I hate getting into any kind of financial detail's, so just my experience.

JAJ

As far as Australia is concerned, all income earned anywhere in the world is taxable if you are an Australian tax resident. The U.S. and Canada have similar laws.

It's different with countries that only tax income sourced within the country, Australia is planning to do thise for some *temporary* residents from July. In that case, income may well legally be "tax free" but usually not otherwise.

welshpom

If you're planning to stay for good (as you mentioned), I'd invest in Aus when you get here. I had/have investments in the US, UK and Aus. Anything other than shares in the US/UK are a real pain to deal with come tax time. Shares a straightforward, you pay tax on the dividends and tax on the capital gains at time of sale. Other investments are often taxable on unrealised gains - so you can get a tax bill for theoretical gains and it's possible for it to cost more than you've got in cash at the time.

Aussie shares also incur less personal tax on their dividends because the companies pay tax and the government takes that into account. Aus is supposed to have the highest participation in share ownership in the world.

geordie downunder

What answer are you expecting,someone to say buy gold it will double in 2 yrs or buy a house in this suburb it is the latest hot tip,this share is going to double in 6 months buy it,short the ASX the crash will happen next month,calls are the answer the market will boom next month,nobody can predict the future.I take it you mean Gilts for UK bonds,are you prepared to predict interest movements in the UK for the next 10 yrs,each movement will increase or decrease the value of your gilt,are you prepared to predict inflation for the next 10 yrs so you will know how much 100 quid will be worth in 10 yrs.Do you think anybody is capable of predicting these things,if they were they would be the richest man in the country/world.How long are you going to invest for?Are you prepared to watch your investment lose 30% and then wait for possibly years until it goes back to previous levels,how long did people wait in the UK for house prices to rise after the crash in approx 1990.The only person that can answer your question is you,if you want to believe that some web site has the answer or some financial guru then give your money to them,if you are not prepared to work at researching investments then put your money in the bank,you will get around 5.5% interest which will be taxed at the rates I gave you.If the dividends are not fully franked along the lines I explained then divi is taxed at the rates given,stock tables will give you the tax status,ff, pf(partly franked).If you do not want an honest answer why ask the question,there are as many sharks here prepared to take money off you as there are in any other country in the world and probably more get rich quick merchants prepared to sell you the secrets for a few thousand dollars than anywhere else in the world.The numbers are simple,as I said you can turn $ 100,000 into $4.5 mill if the future is the same as the past,are you prepared to put your money into 6 bank stocks,average growth for the past 10 yrs is 21% a year compounding,do you think all the financial gurus put their money there 10 years ago because they knew that was going to happen,using the derivatives market they would get far greater returns than 21%.