Taxing Problem

It’s been a bit quiet lately as we deal with the important and dull necessary tasks…

We’re trying to leave the UK with no outstanding bills, other than the mortgage. A couple of long term loans are being pressed into shorter terms just so we have no financial baggage.

That aside, we face the issue of dealing with our house. The two choices are to keep it and get agency to let it out, or we sell it.

Either way we get hit with taxes when taking the money across to Sweden.

It’s around 15% of what you bring in (over a certain amount). Selling the house would be a big hit. Once the mortgage is cleared by the sale, there isn’t a great deal left to take in real terms, and then getting that taxed would be painful. All the payments and for what?

Leasing through an agent still seems the way to go. We figure the monthly income would cover the agency fees, the mortgage & the maintenence. Until the lease payments pay off the mortgage we wouldn’t see much income, but once paid off, we’ll have a steady income for ourselves in our later years (the house would be a good pension). Yes, the income into Sweden would be taxed, but it’s income all the same and it’s also going to be income when Alex is older. It would give him something of a parachute in life.

If the income goes direct to Sweden, and then the agency take their cut and the mortgage lenders take their cut, we would be owing each month. If I can get things arranged properly though, I should (legally, you huge corporate arseholes) be able to pay the agency and mortgage lender before the remained is transfered to Sweden, so we don’t get taxed on money that is going straight back to the UK. We’d only get taxed on the money that’s coming in and staying in Sweden.

I don’t mind paying the taxes. It’s for everyone’s benefit, but I would loath paying tax on money that then has to go straight back to the UK to pay the bills. Yes, tax what’s coming in and staying – that’s fine by me.

More research…

Banking

Trying to set up a bank account so it is ready for us when we get to Sweden is being a pain.

Handelsbanken (the Swedish bank we want to use) require a signed letter from our current UK bank that simply states that yes, we are who we say we are and we have been customers for however many years. It’s a very simple reassurance to the Swedish bank that we can be trusted, as we are long time established customers of a UK bank.

The trouble is, our particular branch (the signature is at the branch managers discretion) hadn’t seen this type of letter before, so they said they couldn’t sign it due to bank policy. We know it isn’t bank policy as we called head office. It is purely the branch manager’s decision. He didn’t want to check it out, so made a quick ‘Nope‘ there and then. Didn’t even ask his superiors. Lloyd’s have always been good to us, so this was a kick in the teeth and a possible rethink regarding who we bank with.

We went to HSBC and yes, they can do international banking and it will allow you to take your account to any country, along with any history (which is good for credit, mortgages etc)… but you need to have £50,000 in the account in the first place. So that’s no good as we aren’t quite up to that in our savings account. By a long shot.

The other option might be Handelsbanken, the bank we actually want to go with. They are a Swedish bank now running in the UK. I don’t think the UK and Swedish branches are linked as such – in fact I believe they are independent, but as they are all under the same umbrella it might be the way forward. A branch/office has opened up locally so we’ll be trying to get in contact with them.

More as it happens….