Martin72

I will emigrating to Perth with my family in Feb 2010 and wanted to know if I need to inform the UK government that I will be leaving the country.

This is in terms of
- Tax and getting any refund
- State pension, Does it just site there until I retire (many years from now)
- Any benefits I currently get i.e. child benefit, tax credits.

Thanks

Bermudashorts

Yes you need to tell the government, particularly about 1 and 3. I don't know what happens with pensions, perhaps somebody else will clarify on that.

Pollyana

Your State pension will sit there till you retire, you can then get it paid to you in Aus.
You need to notify the child benefit people - all that kind of thing needs to be stopped when you leave.
Tax refund you need a P85 from the Inland Revenue website.

Billabong

As the others have said but I also felt like saying - "I'm outta here - get stuffed" :-)

hantsfamily1

Goodbye and get stuffed is perfect.

Pollyana

Tempting, but two things stopped me - the thought that I might actually need that pension one day, as I am never likely to be eligible for an Aussie one, and the size of the tax refund I got Thanks! seemed more appropriate!

ozzieeagle

Things places and people change, never burn ones bridges totally. As many eggs in as many baskets as possible is the way to go.

steve`o

make sure this is done in writing as they ( child tax benifit ) are completly ****** useless, cancelled everthing yet they carried on paying it into our account, even called them from aus but they carried on paying for almost a yr then they sent demands with repay in 7 days or face charges
like i said complete muppets get it in writing

moneypenny20

And do that about a year before you plan on moving. If you leave it until the last minute, do not give them a forwarding address, not even the parents and if possible, close the bank account they have details of. Steve is actually being generous. I'd use far stronger words than his about the bunch of useless morons.

scrubbedexpat001

Check regarding your State Pension as I believe you have to top up your NI Contributions in order to be eligable for it when you retire.. There's pleanty of companies who can provide info on this as well as transferring over other UK pensions.

Pollyana

No, you can top up if you wish to, but you don't have to. You can claim based on whatever you have paid in.

Alfresco

Ah but if they're that useless, then maybe some bright spark will actually do more than their job and stop our child benefits early if we told them about it now. Then we'll never get it from them.

Ours goes into a savings account anyhow so won't get used for anything else and we could pay them back.

moneypenny20

If it had meant that we lost a bit of money but didn't have two years of grief once we'd got here it would have been a small price to pay.

Alfresco

Yeah I see your point. I will get it in writing from them as Steve says above whatever we do. That makes sense.

moneypenny20

Sorry, just noticed your avatar, that's a cracker