Ken

But a Commonwealth Seniors Health Card doesn't come with any benefits from Centrelink. In fact you are now allowed to have one if you are receiving any benefits from Centrelink. Despite this (as I mentioned in an earlier comment) there is a 4 year residence requirement for any new arrivals.

I suspect (but don't actually know) that as with Banks anywhere else the Irish banks will want him to go into a branch to prove his identity before opening the account. One thing he can do in advance is open a debit card account with Wise. There's is a $10 fee to get a physical card and a fee if you need to make more than 2 ATM withdrawals (or more than $350/month) and fees for keeping large amounts in the account (more than AUD 23,000 or EUR 15,000) so it's not a permanent solution for his banking but definitely a way to hit the ground running.

You really are moving a long way South. Sunshine and Goldie are both in Victoria!

The information I gave you is from centrelink's own website (now called servicesaustralia) Commonwealth Seniors Health Card - Services Australia The site isn't state specific and makes no mention of the residence requirement varying by state. However once you have the card the concessions you can get do vary by state.

There's a four year waiting period for new permanent residents for the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card so based on your timeline you won't be able to get one until June 2024. It shouldn't impact your assurance bond though - after all one of the requirements for the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card is "You must not be getting a payment from us (Centrelink) or the Department of Veterans' Affairs".

Right at this moment, if you transferred £100k with Wise you would receive $182,418.04. This is based on a rate of 1.83057 and a 0.35% fee of £349.05 I then wondered what would happen if you transferred the money back. If you then transferred $182,418.04 back in to sterling you would receive £99,204.00. This is based on a rate of 0.546277 and a 0.45% fee of $817.86 So a round trip cost of £796.00

Where are this site! Trump got banned from Twitter and Facebook and he didn't anything as bad as that!

You can't use your Super to buy an annuity until you reach your preservation age. For anyone born after 1 July 1964 that preservation age is 60. However even if you have reached preservation age, if you haven't permanently retired you can only access part of your super via a transition to retirement pension and buying an annuity is not an option by that route. If you haven't retired you would need to be 65 before you would be able to buy an annuity. As others have mentioned an annuity is an expensive option for your pension income unless you know that you are going to live a lot longer than the insurers believe you will. Bearing in mind the insurers will conduct a medical, insist on access to your medical history and have huge amounts of data on life expectancy in someone with your health and lifestyle I really wouldn't recommend betting against them.

I suspect they are actually referring to the difference between 50% and 99% for one co-owner and 50% and 1% for the other. All rental income and expenses between co-owners must be split between the co-owners according to their legal interest in the property regardless of any agreement between the owners to do otherwise. Has the UK declaration of trust actually changed the legal ownership or is it just an agreement on how to split the income? The answer to that question determines the tax treatment.

No Hotel complies with quarantine standards. These require the rooms to be kept at a negative pressure of 30Pa below ambient and to have an anteroom (often referred to as an airlock) kept at a negative pressure of 15Pa below ambient.

Temporary residents are not required to declare most types of foreign income and capital gains. Target foreign income affects entitlements to social security payments that temporary residents aren't entitled to in the first place.

The problems that have been experienced with hotel quarantine suggest they haven't spent a cent on upgrades to the air-conditioning, ventilation or airflow between rooms!

Provided you don't owe any money to the Australian Government, the only financial hurdle was paying the application fee. Credit card debts and your bank balance are irrelevant for this visa. Processing time is currently listed as 75% 13 months, 90% 17 months, so while you've had a long wait you're not alone there.

There were lots of interesting articles in AFR this weekend but I couldn't see one called Going Home! Any clues as to which one article you are referring to? Your link doesn't work.

I don't see how that list would fill up a 20ft container. They do know that you can stack up to the roof (and that trampolines pack flat) don't they?

If you can't get anywhere with the normal contact methods lodge it as a complaint (there's a lodge a complaint section on the AustralianSuper website) and if that still doesn't yield a result follow up with a complaint to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (www.afca.org.au). The latter do expect you to have lodged a complaint with the service provider first. I suggest you state when making the complaint to AustralianSuper that you'll be escalating the complaint to the Authority if you don't get a satisfactory response within x working days.

Nothing to do with Australia being in the Commonwealth and all about reciprocity. If a person worked for 20 years in Australia then moved to the UK before retirement the Australian government refuses to pay them any portion of the Aged pension and the social security cost falls entirely on the UK taxpayer. If a person worked for 20 years in the UK then moved to Australia before retirement the Australian government requires them to claim their UK pension and reduces their aged pension by a portion of it so a portion of Australia's social security cost is borne by the UK taxpayer. Until such time as the Australian government agrees a fairer split of social security expenditure British pensioners in Australia should not expect to receive full pensions from the UK taxpayer.

Consolidating your pensions into one should save on some fees but isn't necessarily a good idea. Should you choose when you are over 55 to liquidate a UK pension you are liable for tax in Australia on the AFE of the whole fund (even if you've only withdrawn 25% so as to be tax free in the UK). If you are able to liquidate one small fund at a time you can spread the tax bill. Another tip when doing this is to put the AFE amount into Super (and claiming the deduction) and just keep the tax free part (that's the value of your fund when you moved to Australia). Your Super balance will be hit by 15% tax on the AFE (and your total retirement savings by that and the amount you've pocketed) but it's worth it for some people.

You can rent out your home and still no longer be considered as having a home in the UK (since the accommodation isn't available to you) but (whether you rent or sell) if you remain outside of the UK for less than 3 full tax years (other than short visits) there's a risk HMRC will deem you as resident throughout your absence. It depends on exactly how many ties you have to the UK (of which available accommodation is one) and exactly how long you've been in and out of the UK.

The UK doesn't treat the transfer of money from a UK pension fund to an annuity or to a draw-down account as income. Only the income from the annuity or draw-down is taxable. It would be logical if they treat an Australian Super Fund in the same way and I expect that they do so (I've never heard otherwise although I've not known anyone in the position to do this) but beware that logic and tax do not always go hand in hand!

The Border Force website clearly states "you cannot use the UPE concession if you arrange to import your personal effects months after you arrive in Australia". The UPE (Unaccompanied Personal Effects) concession is what allows you to import your possessions tax free when you emigrate. However you should still be able to import the goods tax free as the value is less than $1,000. Vendors of low value items (say if you bought the goods on eBay) do have to charge GST even though the goods are worth less than $1,000 but it doesn't appear to apply to personal imports. I don't know how they tell the difference though!

Don't sweat it. Unless there was an overlap in December the six month rule is irrelevant for you as you only had one primary residence at a time.

Not from the transfer of the funds, but there can be CGT on the sale of the property to account for (but the primary residence exemption may well apply and all foreign income is exempt for temporary residents).

If you didn't have another primary residence at the same time (which depending on when in December you moved in to your new home seems to be the case) then it wouldn't have mattered if you had rented out your UK home, you'd still be entitled to the primary residence exemption.

We've got Novak Djokovic? How did we wangle that?