Tan0410

I have read all threads I can find and to be honest I now have an information overload

Could someone simplify my options for me....and advise (if they feel they can).

We need another bank account that could be easily accessed in both the UK and NZ for the forseeable future. This is to transfer money back to an old account for UK bills and to stash some cash away from the prying eyes of our current bank (all above board I promise).

At the same time we will need somewhere to stash the house proceeds (once sold and again for the forseeable future) and think we're best not converting to NZ dollards for the time being

I am really lost when considering what's best in terms of 1)Tax (Offshore vs. not) 2) Interest rates 3) Accessibility 4) Location

Anyone with a sound financial head out there?

Thanks

Genesis

We have been here 3 years. We opened an ASB afore we left UK shores. We kept open our Nationwide account and use it regularly for direct debits in the UK and buying folk back in the old country gifts, we also wanted to leave wonga in the Uk for our odd return back to check the woodwork etc.

So we access our account via the internet and as yet we have not moved any money over here yet from that account, we simply emptied most of the cash from that account, wrote ASB a cheque and the money was converted and sent over here. You can ship £ over here and have a stirling account, alas the interest rate is not as good as the 8.7 you can get in e net accounts in kiwi $s!!!!!!!

Alas the kiwi has never been so strong so now is not the best time to convert unless you have to.

Any money you have in NZ whilst you are not in receipt of an IRD number (tax code) attracts a tax rate of 39%..that is what I was told.

nero

I am not a financial advisor, this is just what we did and it seems to be working for us.

Placed the proceeds from selling our house into an Offshore UK account (Nationwide International). The monthly interest is paid into the Nationwide where we have direct debits for bills in the UK etc. If we have any spare at the end of the month we put that back into the Nationwide International. This ensures that we can pay any UK bills, keep £ in a UK current account to a minimum and reap the benefits of an offshore account.

We access both of these accounts over the Internet so we can monitor them from afar and take any required actions as needed. We also filled out forms for the Nationwide current account to say that we were now living in NZ to reduce the amount of tax we paid.

As I said I am no Financial Advisor but this has worked for us over the past 7 months and hopefully will continue to do so for sometime yet. Especially with the $ being so strong. Hope this makes sense :-)