Dual Citizenship - effect on taxes etc?

[Spider]

Hi All

So I wanted to query as I have been told a couple things and I wanted to be sure. If a person decides to go with dual citizenship, upon that happening you can be taxed on income earned here in oz? and if you have bank accounts there would be a number of issues and frozen accounts etc>

I am trying to decide - and I am struggling to see a reason (personally of course) to retain RSA citizenship other than having a bank account in need (to gift money to my sister to help her out in need financially).

So are there financial "ramifications" we may not be fully aware of or is it a case of what some ppl like to think (i sense this person feels strongly about me never returning to RSA, not for anything other than an OTT need to "protect" me)

Thank you

[Judge]

Spider

I am not an accountant, tax agent or financial advisor, but I am pretty sure that your citizenship, dual or otherwise, has absolutely nothing to do with your taxes. The main factors that determine where you have to pay taxes, is for how long in a financial year you were resident in a certain country and whether the two countries have "double taxation agreements" in place.

[Nev]

Correct, with the tax laws between Au & RSA you pay taxes in the country you currently reside in unless the income is generated in the other country and then it gets tricky (You don't get double charged though)

This is irrelevant of the citizenship you hold.

If you give up south african citizenship you are unable to have a normal bank account in RSA, so any money you want to give anyone needs to be done as a direct international transfer to them

You can spend 3 months in RSA getting a visa when you land on a AU passport, if you need you can reapply for permanent residence and get your citizenship back (You need to move back to RSA and live there though)

Personally i also dont see much point in keeping your RSA citizenship, if one day you want to move back you still can without it, people have some quite heated ideas on this though, i dont really bug one way or the other and having dual is just more work i expect

[Spider]

thanks all

yeah I don't see a reason to have dual because the other thing we can do is via paypal really as its nothing ever big but monies to help family out here and there...and sadly unless for tragic events I don't see myself returning to RSA anyways

[Nev]

Agree on that, haven't thought about Paypal, how would you get money to RSA using them?

[Spider]

you can link paypal to your fnb account so I had two paypals - one in aus and one in rsa and would send from one to the other and then use fnb to withdraw it for a low fee

obviously my family will open a paypal and link to their fnb and I would simply send to their paypal and they withdraw - in paypal you can say the money is for family and when you withdraw you say what you getting it for and I usually say gift as I am not loaning it etc, I am helping out as a gift as that is what I can do for them at times

generally though I guess its like we use paypal for most things these days on ebay etc overseas

I guess other options on internation transfer but I believe the fees are pretty hefty

[Nev]

That is great, i will give it a check