Working in Nrthern Ireland, Living in the South - banking?

awnow

Hi
What is the most cost effective way to bank (i.e. WRT your income) when working in the North and paid in sterling while living in the South and all your bills are in Euro?

And what's the best way to handle the exchange rate if your salary is to be paid into a Northern/UK bank account (presumably) while your bills are all paid through your Southern bank a/c e.g. mortgage, utilities etc.?

In summary, how do avoid being fleeced by the banks?!

ABajaninCork

Wouldn't be the banks I'd be worrying about. It'd be the taxman - both UK and Ireland!!!

Have a word with your employers/colleagues. You can't be the only one in this boat, and they could probably give you a few pointers.

awnow

ABajaninCork wrote: »

Wouldn't be the banks I'd be worrying about. It'd be the taxman - both UK and Ireland!!!

My understanding is that if you're working in the north while resident in the South, you apply for a National Insurance Number in NI and pay all your taxes etc. to the northern Revenue system and just make a self-assessment every year to Revenue in ROI declaring what you earned as "foreign income" plus declare any other incomes such as rent etc. In summary, if you work in the North you pay your taxes in the north...

Can anyone validate this?

Joe Doe

Sounds right where ever you are in the world:

1. You pay your PAYE Taxes inc the additional National Insurance/Superannuation etc where you work.
Your employer will do this automatically. You'll need a Tax Code & NI number for the UK, else will be on BR Emergency code (reclaimable).
2. You declare this as 'Foreign Income' source on your personal tax returns (supplementary forms) in the country you reside.

If you only work part of the year in foreign state, this may be reclaimable, is easy to do it yourself.
Banking in the UK is free (generally), and the tax rates are now more or less the same as ROI.

The only chance of banks ripping, is when it comes to fx rates.

Your best bet is to find a good border based bureau. e.g. this one has good rates
The may do cheque exchange once they get to know you and you have plenty of ID to show them etc.

Now is a good time to go GBP to EU. 1 = 1.30

Mrs OBumble

According to the government, you will be a cross-border commuter or a frontier worker.

Citizen's Information here: http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/moving_country/moving_abroad/working_abroad/working_in_the_eu.html

And they point to the Border People site (which looks like it's EU spported) for more info: http://borderpeople.info/

Personally I'd be doing as much shopping as I could in the country where I got paid.

DougieH

I have worked in Northern Ireland for the past two years. I opened a current account with Bank of Ireland UK for my wages. I then use Currency Fair each month which exchanges the sterling to euros and deposits it into my euro account.

There is a €3 handling fee with CF so I usually only do one exchange each month but their exchange rates are very competitive and its usually takes about 24 hours for money to move between my sterling & euro account.

awnow

DougieH wrote: »

I have worked in Northern Ireland for the past two years. I opened a current account with Bank of Ireland UK for my wages. I then use Currency Fair each month which exchanges the sterling to euros and deposits it into my euro account.

There is a €3 handling fee with CF so I usually only do one exchange each month but their exchange rates are very competitive and its usually takes about 24 hours for money to move between my sterling & euro account.

That sounds good. Given that the exchange rate has varied considerably over the past couple of years, did you find generally that the fluctuations were having a significant bearing on your income, particularly as you have to transfer to a euro a/c in the South or how did you find it best to adapt/manage? e.g. do grocery shopping and do more of your business in NI when the exchange rate suited.

DougieH

Fortunately the fluctuations in the exchange have been favourable to my situation and have resulted in an unexpected increase in pay. This time last year sterling was at 1.18 euro whereas last week I exchanged my sterling at 1.33 so it's a nice bonus.

I also keep a portion of my salary in my sterling account each month for shopping etc. To be honest I'm doing the majority of my grocery & clothes shopping in the north. I did feel a bit guilty about it at the start but when you see the difference in prices you quickly get over it!!

gerdywerdy

I am in same boat. I use a local company to transfer what I need for bills to southern account. The currency company give a much better rate than Banks or Post office and dont charge a fee and money usually shows up in naccount within 24 hours.

The good thing about this is that getting paid in Sterling and paying bills in South has given me effectively a 7 or 8% pay increase in last few months

Only poblem you may find is if you want to change your northern based bank a lot of UK based banks won't let you open an account with a Southern address so you cant take advantage of some of the switching deals available