ademcc

Things moving along nicely with my paperwork, via company and advisors.

Can anyone tell me why I would not want to be living in the US and getting paid in the UK? Other than keeping up my pension contributions I can't see any advantage of continuing to be paid in £Sterling.

Anyone get paid in £UK and live in the US?

MsElui

husband is paid in dollars and pays US taxes but UK NI (not US SS). he can do this for 5 years or until he goes on local terms and conditions as their is an assumption he would return to the uk at the end of the visa.

He has however kept his english salary on record along with the payrsie percentages so when the assignment ends if he returned to the uk he would go back on his old salary plus all the rises.

The main disadvantage I can see with being paid in dollars is having to deal with the exchange rate fluctuations. ie salary recieved in uk being different potentially every month and possible not keeping pace with cost of living in the us (although the gamble would be maybe it would also improve?)

Big D

i get paid in US dollars but based on a UK salary in GBP - worked pretty well for me to date although it will go down at the next review!

mellybrown

Yup hubby gets same as you - i think it works out easier - if you plan to go back or are not sure if you will be here permanantly!!

penguinsix

It's a tricky issue, especially for your employers.

At a basic level (with some exceptions) if you are working in the US, you pay a certain amount in taxes for social security and medicare, and then your employer kicks in a certain amount as well. For example, if you made $50,000 a year, your employer would actually have to pay about $55,000 a year after they handled all their responsibilities (exaggerating a bit to demonstrate the point). Many UK employers do not want to go down that route--subjecting them to IRS paperwork simply because one guy is working in the US. Others set up shell US companies to handle the payroll processing. Others just say screw it and leave it up to you (which really sucks, because...)

If the employer doesn't pay these taxes, you as the taxpayer have to pay them as part of the 'self-employment' tax. This is an added 5% or so that you get socked with if your employer isn't doing the paperwork.

So, if you can get your paychecks through the US having jumped all the proper hoops for US social security and medicare and whatnot, it's certainly quite a bit easier.

Also--if you rate is based on the £/$, you may consider a periodic 'rate adjustment' to make sure you are getting enough. If they are paying you the $'s based on a 1.74 exchange rate and then it jumps to 2:1, then you would be getting more dollars post-adjustment (though, the converse is true as well). Something to think about.

Patrick Hasler

So long as you get at least TWICE as many US dollars as you do pounds dont worry about it