Pension and UK Banks

[Brian C]

OK looking for some advise.

1. Looking at putting my final salary pension into a UK bank, if it's never moved from there (looking at returning in a few years) what are the tax implications for here?

2. Which UK banks allow you to hold/open a UK account whilst residing here?

[NicF]

It doesn't matter whether you keep your money in the UK or move it here, the tax treatment is the same.  If you are a permanent resident you have to declare your world wide income and will be taxed on it accordingly.  I believe if you are a temporary resident you don't get taxed on world wide income, but I'm not sure if that applies to all temporary visas and if provisional visas count as temporary or not.  Worth getting advice if you fall in to the non permanent visa category.  The only other potential tax implications are on any foreign exchange gains you may make if you leave the money in the UK for a period of time then bring it over.  Unless you have a rather large amount of money say in the UK this is not likely to be a factor.

If you already have a UK bank account before moving you can keep it when you move to Australia.  If you are looking at opening an account in the UK from Australia I believe this is almost impossible now.  Might be worth having a look on our sister site Poms in Oz as I'm sure the same question has been asked on there before (probably several times as well).

[Brian C]

OK thanks for the reply, and I guess I should not be surprised (I may just change my name to Starbucks or Google etc....)

[Philip_Green]

great idea