cookiestar

How does one go about becoming UK non-resident for tax purposes?

I will inform the tax office where I currently PAYE through my employer and I'll be completing a P85 when my P45 comes through, in order to claim my income tax repayment, but is there anything else I need to do?

Do I need to inform my current and previous occupational pension schemes? Banks? What about this concept of "domicile" - how to I establish myself as domiciled in Australia as opposed to the UK (or in fact, should I remain domiciled in the UK?)

I'm getting a bit confused now with all the things I need to do in the next couple of weeks

Bermudashorts

The P85 will take care of any income tax overpayment as you stated, although if you still have a source of income in the UK, e.g. bank interest then you might have to wait until the end of the tax year for it.

I could be wrong, but I don't think you need to do anything with your pensions schemes, other than notify them of a change of address of course. But as they are presumably not being paid into any more, I don't think they will be effected by your move. I assume you are not retired yet and hence they are just sitting there, hopefully growing.

Your domicile is the place you have your permanent home. I don't know what you do to officially change it, sorry, however as far as I can tell it mainly effects inheritance tax and hopefully will not be relevant to you for a long time to come.

You can call your banks and ask them to pay interest gross once you are non resident and then sort out the tax owed at the end of the year when you do your tax returns.

(Disclaimer: although I am an accountant, I don't deal with tax especially personal tax so please do not take this as gospel although I hope it is reasonably accurate and helpful).

cookiestar

Thanks very much Bermudashorts. So it seems I don't really have to do much then.

adamlt1972

I'm no expert, but from memory I'm pretty sure the issue of "residency" and "domicile" are different, so you should be careful as where you are in terms of each does affect your tax liability.
HMRC do have a non-residents section, you should contact them to discuss.

ray2gill

Sorry I think some of the above info is incorrect.

Firstly any personal pensions you have you have 6 months to transfer them over to an OZ based Super Fund as there are OZ tax implications which I think would be to your advantage.

Once a pension has been transfered to OZ though it cannot be transfered back.

Domicile is very difficult. You have to be out of the country (UK) for ex number of years and have no ties with the UK at all- no bank accounts, pension - in short no interests in the UK what so ever. Domicile is decided by your parents place of birth and not where you reside. It is very difficult to change and the tax man has a very long arm.

I suggest you contact someone for proper advise who actually knows about UK and OZ taxation systems. Alan Collett of gomatilda.com who often lurks on this forum would be a good place to start.

Good luck.

cookiestar

Thanks Ray2Gill.

I thought the domicile concept was complicated, and you've confirmed that. We'll be keeping bank accounts in the UK, so I guess for now we'll remain domiciled in the UK.

I don't have any personal pensions, just a final salary occupational scheme, but I will get some advice before dealing with them.

ray2gill

I am no expert and do not profess to be but I have seen various info from Fry reports which I recieve which have recently covered domicile.

Please do get professional advise regarding your pension before you leave the UK as it is more difficult once you have left. That adviser should be conversant with OZ & UK Tax implecations though (difficult to find).

Good luck.

Bermudashorts

The OP didn't mention he wanted to transfer his pension, I had thought he was just going to leave it where it is until maturity and then have a foreign source of income. Just a misunderstanding, sorry.

Most tax is based on residency not domicile, the exception being inheritance tax. My point being that there is no immediate steps that should be taken and indeed I don't think anything can be done at this point anyway, that's all.

cookiestar

She was thinking about transferring her UK occupational pensions to an Aus super fund. I should really have mentioned this in my original post, but wasn't thinking about that at the time. This of course depends on me getting a permanent job with a super fund. Useful to know about the 6 month transfer window. I think we really need professional advice when the time comes to establish whether it's in our best interests to transfer them or leave them in the UK (I've only been paying into the scheme for 5 or so years...)

Bermudashorts

Heh heh, don't know why I assumed you were a he there..

Oh no and you have the pink thing by your username too.. doh

ray2gill

Talking about Pink Things I don't know why I've got a blue one as I am a she, female, girl.

Can someone change it please!!!!!!

Pollyana

You need to go into your profile and tick female instead of male
Sorry, not something I can fix myself for you.

Pollyana

Vaguely related question, which I hope someone can help with - if someone is filling in a P85 to claim tax back, but they don't have their P45, is there a way round it? P45 was lost in the move to Aus, is it possible to claim without it?

Bermudashorts

I didn't do a P85 when I went to Bermuda, I waited until the end of the year and then did a normal tax return. You certianly don't need to submit supporting documents for a tax return but I am not sure whether the P85 is different.

Of course you would need to know the numbers on the P45. Do you have a record of that or perhaps a final pay slip, that would also detail the gross pay and tax paid which is essentially all that is required to fill in the boxes.

Pollyana

Thanks for that, its not for me so I'm not sure, but there might be a final payslip around somewhere, I'll check