Just a few Un answered financial questions

[MMF]

Hi everybody,

I have a few un answered issues that I need expert advise on.

1. Is it true that if you Immigrate (Finally off books at SARS) you cannot own a property in SA but you can have a bank account?

If 1 above is true, we would not be able to still run our business from Oz and would have to sell it. So with our property, we would then have to sell and cannot rent it till the market is better.

2. Can we immigrate on PR and still be fine with $ 14000.00 TILL hubby gets a job?

3. Can we go to Oz with PR without having to notify SARS and then just have our bookkeeper still do our Tax annually?

If we don't sell our property we would only have the above amount to go and I suppose then in that case we do not need a SARS clearance.

4. Can we get through customs with 1000.00 Euros AND THE $ in our pocket?

for how long would we be able to rent/school/live with only that and the monthly rent from our property, which when converted would be $ 600 p/m.

Maybe this has been covered on the forum, but not in a nutshell though.

Edited July 18, 2008 by MMF

[Eva]

I have friends who left SA for Aus 18 months ago without officially emigrating - just PR. They have left a business running here exactly as you have described, someone sorting it out for them here etc, only difference is they are not sending the money there but use it on holiday here. Having said that, they are planning on selling it at the end of the financial year as they now need the money there and also don't see themselves coming on holiday to SA every year. Hope that helps some....

[JanCPT]

1. Is it true that if you Immigrate (Finally off books at SARS) you cannot own a property in SA but you can have a bank account?

Not true - the exchange control limitation relates to funds / assets transferred out of SA. The assets remaining in SA are subject to the emmigration limits & the excess is frozen ... what this means that if you sell them (the excess), you will not get Reserve Bank permission to take the funds out of the country for amounts in excess of your limits. You will get permission to take out funds up to the amount of your limits

If you don't sell the property, you will be able to take out the rentals recieved on that property after emmigration (it's only the asset itself that is frozen)

Non residents are allowed to own property in SA

If you do inform them of your emmigration, you will be taxed on rentals recieved from a SA source, as a non-resident

2. Can we immigrate on PR and still be fine with $ 14000.00 TILL hubby gets a job?

Can't speak from experience, but from what I've read, AU$4k a month is what you will need to live (add a settling cost of AU$2k as a cushion & you should be able to survive for about 3 months on that - depends on your lifestyle)

3. Can we go to Oz with PR without having to notify SARS and then just have our bookkeeper still do our Tax annually?

Yes, the emmigration allowance only applied if you inform them that you have decided to emmigrate ... until that time you are still thinking about it and remain a SA resident & are subject to tax in SA

Taxes can be done online these days, so you could do the taxes yourself if you wanted to

If we don't sell our property we would only have the above amount to go and I suppose then in that case we do not need a SARS clearance.

You would have to take it out as part of your holiday allowance, which could include preparation expenses for an extended working holiday

4. Can we get through customs with 1000.00 Euros AND THE $ in our pocket?

Is the Euro1k in addition to the AU$14k above? .. not sure - I'd suggest you look at customs on both sides - they are very sticky about the movement of Black Money & I would advise that you take it out through the banking system ... Hell, you might be robbed at the airport ... or on the way to the airport!!!

for how long would we be able to rent/school/live with only that and the monthly rent from our property, which when converted would be $ 600 p/m.

See about AU$4k pm above

Good luck

Cheers

jan

Edited July 19, 2008 by JanCPT