Moving Money from Australia to the UK - are there any tax implications

[dandr]

We have recently arrived back in to the UK from Australia and we have some queries about moving our money to the UK. In terms of our background, we are Australian/British dual citizens. We were born in Australia and moved to the UK in 2001. We worked in the UK for 13 years returning to Australia at the start of 2015. We rented the house that we had in the UK with no intention of returning (we almost sold the house at the end of 2014 however the sale fell through due to a covenant issue - we had no choice but to rent the house until the covenant problem could be resolved). We had a number of investment houses in Australia where over the next 5 years, we sold them paying all of the necessary taxes in Australia under their CGT rules. We owned our house in Australia that we sold early this year and we would like to bring those funds to the UK that we can use here. We think that as we are not domiciled in the UK and have taken no steps to change our domicile from Australia and given that we have been out of the UK for over 5 full tax years, we should be able to bring our Australian taxed money to the UK without tax implications in the UK. Do you think that our thought process around this issue is correct?

Any information and advice that anyone can offer would be most appreciated

Many thanks

[jerome.lane]

An adviser would need more details on the timeline of property purchases and disposals. Initial thoughts are that if you went before 5 April 2015 and returned post 6 April 2020, there should be no tax issues. Happy to help and offer formal advice if you require it.

[dandr]

Many thanks for your reply Jerome - much appreciated. Our own research has also indicated this but we are keen to ensure an expert knows the full circumstances and can provide written advice confirming it. I will get in touch to discuss further to better understand the service that you can offer. If other experts are reading this thread, we are currently interested in hearing your thoughts as well as we navigate our way through this process.

[maths]

Did you purchase the Aussie properties whilst resident in A after having left the UK?

Did you sell them whilst resident in A?

The anti-avoidance provision applicable where non-residence is for a period of 5 years (not tax years) or less may be on point?