Working abroad in Australia, what is involved financially and administratively?
If you think there is no complication in your application and you can easily satisfy all criteria you can do the process yourself without using any agent and save few thousand dollars. I have done myself. Another cost Chris forgot to mention is the medical examination cost which is mandatory. If your certificates and docs are non-English translation fees are quite high as well.  The immigration process is very bureaucratic and requires lot of supporting documents. As for living in Australia, Rent, Car and living expenses are high compared to US. But in Sydney and Melbourne you can rent near public transport, which isn't too bad (well not like Europe ). So having a car is not essential. Rent for a decent flat in these cities will be $300 - $350 p/w and you may have to pay 4-6 weeks as advance. You can get a lot of information from the dept. of immingration website. "We don't seem to have (m)any expats or Australians on the site yet, but I'll share what I have learned.  I'm taking advantage of your profile information listing you as a software developer.   A friend of mine is currently doing a study of national IT professional societies for his MBA project. One of his goals is to understand which funding models are effective in the absence of mandatory licensing.  (Consider: Most developers don't need to be a member of an organization in order to practice.) Such organizations you or others may be familiar with are the British Computer Society (BCS), the Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS), or in the U.S. the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and IEEE Computer Society (IEEE-CS). To the point: My friend told me recently that the Australian Computer Society (ACS) makes money by assisting the Australian government in determining immigration eligibility.  So I went to the ACS site and started digging:  ""The Australian Computer Society (ACS)   is the designated professional   assessing authority for persons   seeking to apply for Skilled Migration   as IT (Computing) Professionals [...]"" See ACS's Pre-application Skills Assessment (PASA) page.  That page also links out to the Australian Government's Department of Immigration and Citizenship, in particular to a document titled General Skilled Migration (PDF).  Here are some interesting points I discovered, relating just to fees: The government recommends if you do want professional help to use a registered migration agent.  There will be fees for such an agent.  See MARA - What does it cost to use an Agent?  Currently: AUD1500 - AUD4000, or ~ £850 - ~ £2270. There will be a fee for the immigration application process itself. See Professionals and other Skilled Migrants visa charges - outside Australia.  Currently: total of AUD 6035, or ~ £3420. Also: ""You also need to have your skills   assessed by the relevant assessing   authority as suitable for working in   your nominated occupation.""  (page 7) ... and you need to do that before you even apply.  The ACS Costs and Charges page shows a cost of AUD 400, or ~ £225, for the PASA (General) application. So, I think the answer is yes, you'd certainly want to have ample savings to cover the red tape stuff; perhaps ~ £6000 judging from the above alone.  Add your travel, moving, and living expenses, etc. Best of luck!  Australia sounds exciting.  (Have you considered Canada? ;-)"
I know the general principles of acting as a director in a company, and am familiar with the rights of shareholders. In the last ten years or so, I believe Australia has introduced legislation that strongly punishes those directors who do not act in a professional or prudent manner. While I will of course attempt to fulfill the duties required - I am new to conducting business at this level, and am concerned about mistakenly breaching some unknown rule/law and being subject to repercussions that I just don't know about. As you have already stated, the key to being director in a company is the additional responsibility. Legally you can be held in breach. At the same time you will be able to influence your decision much better if you a director and thus safeguard your interest. If you are only a shareholder, you cannot be held responsible for decision by company, individual malpractice may still be applicable, but this is less of a risk. However over a period of time, the board can take certain decision that may marginalize your holding in the company. I successfully used Currency Fair a few times, they seem to cater for both Australia and the UK. If I remember correctly, you can set everything up via Internet. As they explain on their website, first you open an account with them, then you transfer AUD to an Australian bank account that they will give you, then you exchange and transfer the money to your friend on their web page. Usually they are cheaper than PayPal, especially if you have time to play with their exchange by marketplace functionality (not recommended if you just want to do the transfer). Its best you start this venture as a Business entity. Whatever the customer pays you is your income. Whatever you pay to the hotel will be your expenses. Apart from this there will be other expenses. So essentially difference between your income and expense will be the profit of the entity and tax will be on the profit. If you do not want to start an Business entity and pay as an individual then please add the country tag, depending on the country there may different ways to account for the funds. Thanks for your reply. I understand what all of the functions are, however, what I want to know is what I will be doing in Layman's terms. I guess I would just like to know what a day-in-the-life of what I would be doing will be. I would also like to know what I should expect during the phone interview I am having on Monday.   Thanks for your help on the matter https://qz.com/1002655/the-company-behind-wordpress-is-closing-its-gorgeous-san-francisco-office-because-its-employees-never-show-up/  2. Zappos, who also allows work on remote - at least partially.  As automation takes root, more and more functions can be performed outside office. The problem is the fossilized mentality of the management.  Even in a more traditional industries some of the tasks can be done is a more creative and flexible arrangement. If anybody takes care to do internal organisational overhaul. If the firm treats you as an employee then they are treated as having a place of business in the UK and therefore are obliged to operate PAYE on your behalf - this rule has applied to EU States since 2010 and the non-EU EEA members, including Switzerland, since 2012. If you are not an employee then your main options are: An umbrella company would basically bill the client on your behalf and pay you net of taxes and NI.  You potentially take home a bit less than you would being 100% independent but it's a lot less hassle and potentially makes sense for a small contract. Yes we do still get paid. When someone get's a burnout, they pay six weeks. There's a lot of pseudo-sickness anyway, and people living unhealthy lives and getting sick through that, so i wouldn't actually find the australian system a problem..although you only have to get really sick once to feel it hard.. *All* modern economies are service-based.  It's what makes up the rest that matters, namely manufacturing or natural resources.  Neither Aus nor Can have terribly huge manufacturing sectors by world standards, but the natural resources potential of both nations is enormous. With a question like this you should talk to a tax professional who knows about international tax and knows about both the UK and the country you will be working in. They will give you up to date advice on what can be an extremely complex question. However to get you started I'll tell you what I was told when I did this nearly twenty years ago. It's all about whether you are resident in the UK for tax purposes or not. If you are, you will pay UK tax. If not, you wont (assuming you are being paid outside the UK - check with your professional exactly what is involved). In those days you could be counted as 'non resident' if you spent a complete period of twelve months outside the UK. You can make occasional visits to the UK without invalidating that. Again, check exactly how much you are allowed to return while still being not resident. Usually you will have to pay tax in the country where you are resident, but check the rules there. With some skilful timing you may be able to be considered non-resident in bouth countries, at least for some of the time. Again, your tax professional will know. The bank account question - again get a professional. I don't think it's a problem, but you may have to establish that you are being paid in the foreign country. In general you are going to need an account in the country where you work, so if its a problem get paid there and transfer any money you need in the UK. Like in the US, more flexibility is extended to hidden orders. Australia has taken an aggressive approach to hidden orders in the direction of lower ticks. Aussies have a rich financial that evolved differently than the Dutch custom more familiarly known in the UK and US. They, like Chicago evolved out of commodities trade rather than trade.  When commodities are worth nearly nothing per unit, larger precision comes naturally. For the Dutch, it was the opposite.  A single ship would trade in 1/64 share or for the largest vessels, 1/128 share.  Here, there's no point to high precision.  New York, founded by the Dutch specialized in logistics just the same.   To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail, so both Chicago, Australia, and other financial systems built by commodities rather than trade have extended the higher precision logic to everything else, and pricing is fantastic. It should not be a surprise why Australia has taken a lead in pushing infinite precision. Because you actually reside in New Zealand, your income taxes will be paid in New Zealand. However, as a non-resident of Australia you will have tax withholding on all of the interest you earn in an Australian bank account. Obviously, because that tax is paid to Australia, that will not be counted against your New Zealand income taxes due to the taxation agreement between those countries. You should still discuss this with an accountant in New Zealand and consider acting as a sole trader. Since you are doing freelance work, that seems like the most logical setup anyway. does your sister agree to sell her share of the house?  Will you live in the house or rent it out?  In Australia if you rent out the house you can claim on expenses such as interest deductions, advertising cost, advertising to get tenants in, maintenance cost, water & sewerage supply charge, Land tax, stamp duty, council rates.  A percentage of these expenses can be used to reduce your gross income and therefore reduces your tax liability (called negative gearing).  Not sure how other countries handle investment properties. If you plan to live in the house and not rent it out and you have spare cash to buy outright then do so.  You don't want to be in debt to the bank "An employee costs the company in four ways: Salary, taxes, benefits, and capital. Salary: The obvious one, what they pay you. Taxes: There are several taxes that an employer has to pay for the privilege of hiring someone, including social security taxes (which goes to your retirement), unemployment insurance tax (your unemployment benefits if they lay you off), and workers compensation tax (pays if you are injured on the job). (There may be other taxes that I'm not thinking of, but in any case those are the main ones.) Benefits: In the U.S. employers often pay for medical insurance, sometimes for dental, life, and disability. There's usually some sort of retirement plan. They expect to give you some number of vacation days, holidays, and sick days where they pay you even though you're not working. Companies sometimes offer other benefits, like discounts on buying company products, membership in health clubs, etc. Capital: Often the company has to provide you with some sort of equipment, like a computer; furniture, like a chair and desk; etc. As far as the company is concerned, all of the above are part of the cost of having you as an employee. If they would pay a domestic employee $60,000 in salary and $20,000 in taxes, then assuming the same benefits and capital investment, if a foreign employee would cost them $0 in taxes they should logically be willing to pay $80,000. Any big company will have accountants who figure out the total cost of a new employee in excruciating detail, and they will likely be totally rational about this. A smaller company might think, ""well, taxes don't really count ..."" This is irrational but people are not always rational. I don't know what benefits they are offering you, if any, and what equipment they will provide you with, if any.  I also don't know what taxes, if any, a U.S. company has to pay when hiring a remote employee in a foreign country. If anybody on here knows the answer to that, please chime in. Balanced against that, the company likely sees disadvantages to hiring a foreign remote employee, too. Communication will be more difficult, which may result in inefficiency. My previous employer used some contractors in India and while there were certainly advantages, the language and time zone issues caused difficulties. There are almost certainly some international bureaucratic inconveniences they will have to deal with. Etc. So while you should certainly calculate what it would cost them to have a domestic employee doing the same job, that's not necessarily the end of the story. And ultimately it all comes down to negotiations. Even if the company knows that by the time they add in taxes and benefits and whatever, a domestic employee will cost them $100,000 a year, if they are absolutely convinced that they should be able to hire an Austrian for $60,000 a year, that might be the best offer you will get. You can point out the cost savings, and maybe they will concede the point and maybe not." "Your bank Lloyds sent the Australian bank $500 AUD, having converted $317.90 GBP at a rate of 1.5728 AUD per GBP which was slightly less than the published rate which normally applies to transfers measured in hundred thousands if not  millions of pounds.  Using the published rate amounts to an unstated fee of 11 AUD which you are not complaining about.  You also paid a fee to Lloyds of 20 GBP which you disclosed after I had posted this answer. The Australian bank refused to accept the payment because the account to which the money had to be deposited was closed.  Perhaps, instead of just sending back $500 AUD, it converted the amount to GBP (less its fee of what I suspect is $60 AUD) and sent it back.  Notice that the bank rate of 1.592 AUD per GBP says that 276.58 GBP is what you get from a tad over  $440 AUD, and so perhaps St George's charged you a $60 AUD fee for the conversion while converting the rest ($440 AUD) to GBP. Or maybe Lloyds  got $500 AUD from St Georges and charged you a $60 AUD fee for converting it to GBP. Regardless of who did the  conversion, it is also possible that the rate you got (not  quite as good as the published rate) corresponds to $450 AUD converting to 276.58 GBP and a $50 AUD fee for the conversion.   You said I was told by Lloyds TSB that St. Georges wouldn't levy any charges, as they would be paid a separate ""agent's fee"". This might have been told to you as ""St. Georges will not be levying any charges if you send $500 AUD for deposit to the account in Australia and your payee will get exactly $500 AUD if you pay us 317.90 GBP plus 20 GBP as our conversion fee today. If you want to send GBP instead, we cannot tell you how much to send  because St. George's will levy a charge for conversion to AUD, and the conversion will be at the rate then prevailing. So your payee may receive more or less than $500 AUD."" Perhaps, wanting to send exactly $500 AUD, you chose to pay Lloyds TSB and send AUD. But, since the account was closed, the money came back, and so you ended up paying yet another conversion fee. The questions are, who charged the second fee? As Muro said in a comment, it should be listed somewhere on the itemized statement. and is it a reasonable charge? I think $50 or $60 AUD is excessive but, then, I am not a bank, and maybe that is what their standard (minimum) charge is. As I said in my comment, the charge is usually a percentage of the amount transferred subject to a minimum levy that the bank sets." You can have a pretty good guess by looking at price pattern and order flow (size of the trades) a) price should be traded in a range b) relatively large size orders, speed.