Critique my British Budget!
#16
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#17
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Re: Critique my British Budget!
Scotland has not been looked at as a destination, yet, but I'm more than open to it. More time to be spent on evaluating future living destinations at a later date.
Thanks for the reply!
#18
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Re: Critique my British Budget!
Are married couples taxed as individuals in the UK, or is there some other logic to moving assets into her name (only?) when living in the UK? Neither my wife or I have a pension but we'll both have IRA/Roth IRA and our projected SS will be very similar. The only difference is my wife is 5 years younger than I so (at the moment) there will be a 5 year gap between me drawing SS and then her drawing her SS at 70.
Not sure if there is any benefit in us moving assets around in the future but certainly worth looking at if it saves us a bit in taxes in the UK. I don't think it would make a difference in the US being as we file married filed jointly.
Thanks in advance for your help.
Not sure if there is any benefit in us moving assets around in the future but certainly worth looking at if it saves us a bit in taxes in the UK. I don't think it would make a difference in the US being as we file married filed jointly.
Thanks in advance for your help.
If you have mutual funds then it is worth converting them to ETFs that are HMRC Reporting Funds, because mutual income from cap gains and qualified dividends are treated as regular income.
https://www.gov.uk/government/public...eporting-funds
#19
Re: Critique my British Budget!
Thanks, not sure if it matters but we won't be working at all (or at least that is the plan) so we won't have any income from a job. All our spending will come from savings and investments and eventually drawing from our IRA/ROTH IRA/SS. I'd earmarked 25% on top of our budget for taxes but was thinking it would be much lower as we can control capital gains, at least until we start drawing SS and have RMD's (but I have a plan to minimize them by doing Roth conversions too).
Also, you have allowed around £100 per month for utilities. Do you use any heating?
#20
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Re: Critique my British Budget!
Note that the IRS does not recognize the ISA wrapper so if you invest in stock and bond funds they will be treated as PFICs and taxed punitively. Cash ISAs are okay but since the first £1,000 of interest is tax free these days then cash ISAs struggle to compete against other interest bearing products.
#21
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Re: Critique my British Budget!
Note that the IRS does not recognize the ISA wrapper so if you invest in stock and bond funds they will be treated as PFICs and taxed punitively. Cash ISAs are okay but since the first £1,000 of interest is tax free these days then cash ISAs struggle to compete against other interest bearing products.
#22
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Re: Critique my British Budget!
Thanks for the observation, it looks like I will have plenty of padding in my healthcare bucket to cover turning up the heating in the winter if it gets a bit nippy!
#23
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Re: Critique my British Budget!
I'm surprised it would be that high in the UK, my budget number was based on what I'm spending here in Chicagoland (it gets cold and hot here!) for heat, electric, water (that includes trash disposal too) - we live in a detached house of about ~2000sqft but it is well insulated. I was assuming being as the UK is not quite as cold, does not have AC and I'd be downsizing I'd not spend as much. Maybe the 'cost per unit of utility' is a lot higher?
Thanks for the observation, it looks like I will have plenty of padding in my healthcare bucket to cover turning up the heating in the winter if it gets a bit nippy!
Thanks for the observation, it looks like I will have plenty of padding in my healthcare bucket to cover turning up the heating in the winter if it gets a bit nippy!
#24
Re: Critique my British Budget!
In the US we are paying, aggregated and averaged around the year, about $250/mth for heating and AC-driven utilities (gas in the winter, electricity in the summer), though for a much larger, detached house. We always hope for a long mild spring and autumn, when we use neither heat nor AC, as those are the cheap months. But some times we go from heating to AC, or vice versa, in only a couple of weeks.
#25
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Re: Critique my British Budget!
Yes, no such thing as filing married, everyone files as individuals. To minimize taxes it is better to spread your income appropriately between each person then you'll each have the full personal £12,500 tax free allowance and each have the £12,300 tax free cap gains allowance and £2,000 tax free dividend allowance. That is potentially £53,600 in tax free income. It has saved us a lot in taxes.
Once we get to SS and RMD it won't matter so much but bridging to that point will require some planning it looks like.
Thanks in advance for the help!
#26
Re: Critique my British Budget!
So how would our savings accounts or taxable brokerage account work, it is in both our names. I assume it's not as simple as splitting up the interest/dividends from the joint account between us both? Savings wouldn't be a problem (just close the joint and open up separate accounts - easy) but our brokerage would trigger off a tax event if we sold and that would not be desirable? Now if we get a dip in the market I could sell and do some tax loss harvesting but buy in one of the individual accounts I'd have to set up. .....
#29
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Re: Critique my British Budget!
Because our income is so lopsided we put all savings accounts USA and UK into my wife’s name, but that is a personal choice.
#30
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Re: Critique my British Budget!
Good to know each of the home countries is a little different, but the main take away is that my health budget number is very overstated, so that is good news.
Scotland has not been looked at as a destination, yet, but I'm more than open to it. More time to be spent on evaluating future living destinations at a later date.
Thanks for the reply!
Scotland has not been looked at as a destination, yet, but I'm more than open to it. More time to be spent on evaluating future living destinations at a later date.
Thanks for the reply!