An idea to move enough money out before its too late

[GTrotter]

Just open an offshore account and fund it with your foreign investment allowance. Standard Bank and Absa/Barclays offer these. The accounts are normally based in the IOM. The account can be denominated in any major currency eg euro/pound. Once you get to auss you can ask them to transfer the cash to your Aus account and even leave some there if you prefer. It is also easy to fund these accounts from Aus as they don't have exchange controls obviously.

[SHIRLS]

PAYPAL FOR DUMMIES :as I understand it.

1.Must have opened an Aussie bank account.

2.Must have a SA credit card.

3.Must have 2 x email addresses

4.Must have MONEY

5.Go to www.paypal.com to register,follow the process and register a personal account ,await your pin code on credit card statement in 3 to 4 days.

6.Return to paypal once you have your secret code to activate your account.

7.Open a second account (premier or business),follow the process(use your 2nd e.mail address).

8.After that we were unsuccessful as we tried to add a bank account and it only came up with a US bank account option ????

9.Lots of patience

10. Help please Michael or Carrie

[Kerry-Lea]

Hi

My hubby workes abraod and is paid into his UK account. He has NEVER drawn money in the UK - we use the cards (Debit and Credit) here and draw money at the ATM like normal. He can also go into the bank and "draw down" large amounts (over the daily limit) if he wants to.

When I went on holiday to Aus (some time back so things might have changed) I used my credit card all the time there to both pay for purchases and withdraw cash. There was no need for me to inform the bank that I was going on holiday.

I would think than unless you are going to be withdrawing HUGE amounts from your SA account in Aus, (that will no doubt raise red flags with the banks) the same will apply?

[Omzig]

I'm a bit confused as to why one would want the complexity and extra fees of using PayPal to transfer money from SA to Oz accounts. According to Reserve Bank rules, you have R500000 yearly overseas gift allowance (combined with your travel allowance). The gift recipient must not be a South African resident. So why not just ask your sister, who is married and has a different surname, to do a TT/EFT to your Oz bank account? Surely the bank fees for SWIFT EFT are less than the CC charges for PayPal?

KerryLea, when using your CC in Oz, you should be under the radar for amounts lower than R20k at a time (Reserve Bank rules...).

[Kwikkie]

I'm a bit confused as to why one would want the complexity and extra fees of using PayPal to transfer money from SA to Oz accounts. According to Reserve Bank rules, you have R500000 yearly overseas gift allowance (combined with your travel allowance). The gift recipient must not be a South African resident. So why not just ask your sister, who is married and has a different surname, to do a TT/EFT to your Oz bank account? Surely the bank fees for SWIFT EFT are less than the CC charges for PayPal?

KerryLea, when using your CC in Oz, you should be under the radar for amounts lower than R20k at a time (Reserve Bank rules...).

Hi Omzig

I dont get it - why involve somebody else if you can yourself can take R 500 000? The idea of a "gift" scares me - what about " skenkingsbelasting"?

I am probably missing the whole point of this discussion - is this about the cost of the transfer of your monies, or what? Help me to understand this better.

Kwikkie

[Willem Pretorius]

Sorry to chip in, just our experience.

An adult can take R500 000.00 per year out, the new law is in place.

Kids kan take R120 000.00 per year.

Gifts are limited to R30 000.00 per person(looking at the current R/$ exhange rate, not gonna help much)

Obtain a tax clearence for all the money in you accounts currently.

Open an account at Commonwealth bank over the net.

Account stays inactive untill land in Oz.

ABSA will transfer all your money,provided for on the tax clearance, for a cost of R562.00(this was in Feb 2008)

Once you land in Oz, activate your account by going to the bank with ur passport. Must be done within 6 weeks after you have landed.

This is by far the cheapest method but always a little bit of risk involved(i am old school,still not to comfortable with Net banking)

Travellers cheques are the safest but only comes to maksimum AUS$200.00 notes and as someone mentioned before, you have to sign every cheque when collecting and then again when cashing in.

You do not need a tax clearance to move your money, as long as it stays within the top mentioned limits.

For the mentioned R500 000.00 you will pay roughly around R8000 fees for American travellers cheques depending on who is doing it for you.(ask for cheques in Aus Dollar and you will pay no fees again in Oz).

Always wise to bring enough travellers cheques, its cash in hand.

And its safe, you can cancel if it gets lost,stolen - peace of mind.

ABSA instructed us not to use our debits cards in Oz, under correction but think we had to sign a form acknowledging it.

(suddenly just seems a long, long time ago)

Don't bring cash, in March 2008 we exhanged rand for travellers cheques R7.60 to $1.00 and when we landed payed R8.10 for $1.00.

Then there is the Isle of Man accounts but we gave it a miss(old school again), some comments made earlier explains more on that.

Just don't be to sad because you will loose all the way, with the exhange rate, the bank fee's, travellers cheque fee's etc.

Willie

[Omzig]

Kwikkie, I believe that the cheapest way to transfer cash from country to country is a telegraph transfer (TT, or EFT = electronic funds transfer). The banks have a tried and tested mechanism for this and use the bank SWIFT code + account number, or international (IBAN) account numbers.

The problem is that the SA Reserve Bank has exchange controls in place which restrict the amount of money you can transfer out of the country (Well, technically, out of the Common Monetary Area, consisting of RSA, Namibia and Lesotho). However, the Reserve Bank allows once-off R2mil offshore investment, and annual R500k travel/gift allowances per person without too much drama, permissions and paperwork. You can open an account with a few Oz banks right now, but technically, you are not allowed to transfer cash there, unless you will be traveling within a short time and have the paperwork to prove it (when using the R500k as travel allowance), and you are certainly not allowed to give a R500k gift to yourself.

I hope this explains the suggestion to use a trusted person to give you "the gift" of your own money, if you insist on transferring cash way before actually traveling.

[Omzig]

Willie P,

kids travel allowance is R160k (Feb 08 rules),

gift/travel allowance per adult per year is R500k (Feb 08 rules), the total amount is the limit, the split doesn't matter,

you can open "migrant" accounts "at least" with CBA, Westpac, NAB, ANZ, not sure about the others,

you can activate the account (identify yourself using the Oz point system - 3 documents) from here by presenting yourself and paperwork to an approved local bank,

as a SA citizen you can do "occasional" overseas credit cart shopping "e.g. internet purchases" not exceeding R20k at the time.

[Biltongboer]

I have not been so confused in a long while.

All this makes me feel very stupid. I thought I knew it all.

I guess I'll just worry about it later then...

[Biltongboer]

I just striked Platinum! 500 posts from the Biltongboer! Cheers!

[SHIRLS]

Hi Omzig

I dont get it - why involve somebody else if you can yourself can take R 500 000? The idea of a "gift" scares me - what about " skenkingsbelasting"?

I am probably missing the whole point of this discussion - is this about the cost of the transfer of your monies, or what? Help me to understand this better.

Kwikkie

How would they know if the recipient is a SA citizen ?

[SHIRLS]

I'm a bit confused as to why one would want the complexity and extra fees of using PayPal to transfer money from SA to Oz accounts. According to Reserve Bank rules, you have R500000 yearly overseas gift allowance (combined with your travel allowance). The gift recipient must not be a South African resident. So why not just ask your sister, who is married and has a different surname, to do a TT/EFT to your Oz bank account? Surely the bank fees for SWIFT EFT are less than the CC charges for PayPal?

KerryLea, when using your CC in Oz, you should be under the radar for amounts lower than R20k at a time (Reserve Bank rules...).

How would they know the recipient is a SA resident living in Aus ??? Let's say if they just have TR ?

[SHIRLS]

Omzig,

the forms needed to transfer an amount of say R50K is pathetic and time-consuming as you need tax clearance which can take 3 to 4 weeks if you are not near to a SARS office.If you need to transfer under R30k quickly then the easiest would be to tranfer funds as a "gift" to a friend or relative by filling in a 2 page user friendly form from your local bank.We are all looking for a way to make life easier so if someone finds a loophole then more power to us IMO.

[Omzig]

Shirls, please read the Reserve Bank Exchange Control Manual: http://www.reservebank.co.za/internet/Publ...6/?opendocument

Parts H and L are the relevant ones if I recall correctly.

The R30k you are referring to is for presents in the form of Kruger Rands. There has been a confusion as to the "gift" amount, so please refer to the above manual, part H, paragraph 2.2.2, quoting:

Single discretionary allowance

Residents (natural persons), who are over the age of 18 years may be permitted to avail of a single allowance within an overall limit of R500 000 per individual per calendar year, without the requirement to obtain a Tax Clearance Certificate, to cover the following discretionary allowances:

•

Monetary gifts and loans – See point 5.1.1, Section L;

... etc...

You can transfer up to R500k per annum as a gift to a "friend", and no, there is no way of knowing if the "friend" is a SA resident or not. But I guess, if the friend has exactly the same name as you, it would be a problem

And yes, it's two pages, no tax clearances, no issues, and if you happen to bank with the dark-green bank I'll gladly send you the electronic copy of the forms - just fill the fields, print, and drop off at the nearest branch. Been using this for years and never had issues with it.

[Willem Pretorius]

Thanks Shirls and Omzig,

This why this website is so effective.

By sharing information like this it makes things so much easier for those still on the way, prevents them making the same errors some of us made.

It just about covered the all the ways of getting money to Oz.

After attending one of the emigration seminars in SA and being told to pay R28 000.00, we decide to do all ourselfs.

Made the errors along the way but in all did, not cost us 35% of the amount that we were required to pay.

(feel like Frank Sinatra now - "I did it my way" )

Just a last point from my side,its just important for all on the way to try and obtain tax clearances in time.

We had a laughable experience with SARS, don't get caught like us.

About six weeks before we left we revieved a tax clearance from SARS, done in Gauteng, for my pension/provident fund manager to be able to pay the money into my account.

So all good, container packed and were off to visit the family.

Thought that since we will be in Gauteng, do the bit that is still required from there.

Went to the bank and they wanted a tax clearance before they can transfer the money to Oz.

So i went to a large SARS branch in Gauteng and applied.

They kept us on the line for 2 weeks and then in the end told us to go back to where we come from and apply for a tax clearance certificate from there.

I just burst out laughing, all inside looked at this mad man hosing himself.

Just confirmed our move to Oz.

Willie

[GTrotter]

Another option if you are only planning to leave in a year or more and you prefer not to go through SARS clearance and foreign bank account opening yet is to invest all your free cash in one of the Foreign Currency Money market funds. Absa has funds denominated in Euro/GBP/USD. When the time comes to leave you just cash out and transfer the money to AUS. FNB also has foreign currency denominated bank accounts based in SA you need to get SARS clearance for these though.

[SHIRLS]

Shirls, please read the Reserve Bank Exchange Control Manual: http://www.reservebank.co.za/internet/Publ...6/?opendocument

Parts H and L are the relevant ones if I recall correctly.

The R30k you are referring to is for presents in the form of Kruger Rands. There has been a confusion as to the "gift" amount, so please refer to the above manual, part H, paragraph 2.2.2, quoting:

Single discretionary allowance

Residents (natural persons), who are over the age of 18 years may be permitted to avail of a single allowance within an overall limit of R500 000 per individual per calendar year, without the requirement to obtain a Tax Clearance Certificate, to cover the following discretionary allowances:

•

Monetary gifts and loans – See point 5.1.1, Section L;

... etc...

You can transfer up to R500k per annum as a gift to a "friend", and no, there is no way of knowing if the "friend" is a SA resident or not. But I guess, if the friend has exactly the same name as you, it would be a problem

And yes, it's two pages, no tax clearances, no issues, and if you happen to bank with the dark-green bank I'll gladly send you the electronic copy of the forms - just fill the fields, print, and drop off at the nearest branch. Been using this for years and never had issues with it.

Omzig

We are at cross purposes here!

If one is not yet ready to travel,then one cannot utilise the reserve bank allowance of 500,000K travel allowance.However,in my case I needed to make a quick tranfer without complications therefore used the long standing old route of a R30,000. maximum payment as a "gift".Maybe nedbank has got it horribly wrong,but originally I wanted to tranfer 100,000k but was told to get tax clearance first, that was on wednesday! Decided it was too much trouble and would take too long hence my chosen route.!

PS Had already scrutinised the reserve banks exchange control policy thanks.

Shirls

[Omzig]

Shirls, there is no legal 30k gift limit. The limit is 500k for both gifts + travel allowance. The SARB policy is very clear on this and that's why I referred you to the manual. The wording also specifically says that there is no need for tax clearance. However, if you are transferring money to your own offshore account, than it becomes a part of your 2mil investment allowance and you need tax clearance. I also use Nedbank, admittedly Private Banking and not through a branch. Never had problems with the 30k gift limit you describe. I suspect you are up against some sort of misunderstood bank rule, and not a legal requirement.

[Omzig]

OK, I did some digging around and here is where your R30k limit comes from:

SARB 2006 Exchange Control Manual:

5.1.1 General requirements

South African residents may be permitted to transfer monetary gifts within a limit

of R30 000 per applicant per calendar year to:

• persons normally resident outside the CMA;

etc...

SARB 2008 Exchange Control Manual:

5.1.1 Monetary gifts and loans

Authorised Dealers may allow resident individuals to transfer monetary gifts and loans within the limit specified in point 2.2.2 (R500000 - added by me), Section H, per applicant during a calendar year to non-resident individuals and to resident individuals who are overseas temporarily, excluding those residents who are abroad on holiday or business travel.

Shirls, perhaps you should print the latest Exchange Control Manual (on extra-heavy paper) and throw it at your banker.

Also, please excuse my writing style - I know I need etiquette lessons.

[owenss]

Hi,

There is still so much for us to tie up this side ,so we have decided to go across as a "RELOCATION" and not as an "EMIGRATION" for the time being.

Once we have sorted out everything this side we will close all the things that we havent had time to close yet.

My question is however...Do we have to still apply for SARS clearance if this is the way we are doing things and is the travelling allowance for everyone?

We are also waiting for the transfer for our house to come thru .Do I give P.O.A to the bank or to a family member.

Another stupid question ....how do you give P.O.A to someone.... is there a form you need to fill in.Whwere do you get it from.

Help Please we are leaving on the 23rd.

Eileen

[SHIRLS]

Thanks Omzig,We have had our Nedbank Business accounts and personal accounts for many years and have noticed a severe downward spiral of incompetence.Our D@#$head S@#t for brains so-called Relationships Manager advised us as per the 30k amount.I know the reserve bank protocol says otherwise but out of frustration and urgency we did it his way.

Cheers Shirls