pain-in-spain

I´ve lived in Spain 2.5 years. Prior to leaving the UK I was in full time employment for several years and was in the PAYE system. When I left, although I intended not to return (although that my change in the future), I didn´t inform the tax office I was leaving, as a result I have not been paying any NI contributions apart from a couple of months work I did 18 months ago.

I am now becoming an official resident in Spain due to the fact I own property and it´s technically illegal to live here more than half the year without being a resident. However, I am not paying social security contributions here as I don´t have a legal job and can´t afford to be self employed.

I would like to maintain my UK pension, albeit a small one, and have heard that I can pay Class 2 contributions which I understand are for self employed people. I would like to know if I can do this from Spain and if I have to divulge to the UK tax office that I am now a Spanish resident. I don´t want to put my foot in it! I do not want to pay tax in the UK and quite frankly, I am not earning enough to pay tax anywhere and lived on my savings for 2 years!

Secondly. Does anyone know if I can be an official resident in Spain and have an income from the UK (this is where my salar comes from) whilst not paying NI here in Spain. As I said before, I don´t earn enough to pay tax and if I am able to pay Class 2 stamp in the UK perhaps it means I don´t have to contribute here.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

muttymutt

Hi, well I can only tell you what I have done since being here. When myself and my family moved over here 2.5yrs ago, we did tell the tax office just incase we returned home(which we are going to do this year thank god!!) I have been paying class 2 contributions since moving over. The way that I understand it is that in order to pay class 2 you do have to inform the IR why and where from.
As far as paying tax, you cannot be taxed by 2 countries, I beleive Spain and Uk have some sort of tax agreement, so providing you told them where you are you would only be paying tax to one of them. If the income is from the UK and you are a resident here then you would have to pay tax here and not in the UK.
You can ask the Inland Rev. to send you a pension forcast (obviously to a Uk address if you dont want them knowing where you are) Then you;ll know what you've got in your pension. If you do ahve someone witha UK address you can always ask for the Class 2 form and get it filled out and sent back(again obviously it has to come out of a UK bank account)just making out that you are now self employed.
Hope you can make sense of my waffling
No easy way to explain!!!

Good Luck!

kathml

Can you become an unemployed self employed person ??

When I closed my business I advised Newcastle who said that as at that point I wasn't sure if I would start up another then I should stay on Class 2 as its much cheaper than class 4

jdr

Every year i get a letter sent to my care of address in UK asking if i want to pay my self employed stamps, even though they know i live in Spain.

I think you only have to pay stamps for 45 years or so, eg. till you are 60 to get a full pension, so dont get caught out paying too much cos it wont increase your eventual payout. ( if there is any left by the time you claim it )