Rarrr, upcoming immigrant

[lupine]

Hi there,

I'm a Brit working as a software developer in .uk, and I'm currently setting myself up for a move to Finland. Timescales are provisional, but I'm looking at actually doing the move in 2-3 years at most. Currently starting to learn some of the language (dear me, that's a trial) and planning an experimental 2-3 week trip sometime between May-July to get a feel for living and working there.

I'm not a fan of capitals in general, so my trip is likely to be scoping out Turku rather than Helsinki; beyond that, I'm pretty uninformed about what bits I'm interested in. Decent Internet access is a must, but I understand that unless you're in the sticks on the russian border, or the more remote parts of lapland, that's pretty much a given?

I'm also in a slightly easier-than-usual position in that I can take my current position with me to finland; the tax implications of this are slightly confusing to me, but as far as I can tell, as long as I don't spend too much time visiting the UK, I'd be resident in finland and pay tax only in finland, even though the employer is in .uk; and it's not like I'd be setting up a finnish office of the company, or subsidiary or such. As far as I can read, my employer just pays me gross (in sterling), and I sort out tax with the finnish tax authorities from there. Has anyone done this? Are there any peculiarities or things that might trip me up? Obviously, I need to speak to a proper tax lawyer, I'm just trying to get a general feel for how this bit works.

It does mean I'll likely spend a week or so of my next trip technically at work, to get an idea of how viable remote-working from finland is in general. I do it from home a lot already, I can't imagine it's *that* different...

Looking forward to getting involved in the forum in general, anyway

/Nick

[Pursuivant]

I'd suggest visiting in Oct-Nov in getting the "right feel".

As far as taxes go - taxes are only half the fun. The thing is you set yourself up as a "toiminimi" or sole trader, bill your UK for "services" and when you pay the employer contributions (pension, health etc. insurances ) to get the Finnish NHS coverage & so forth.

[lupine]

Colder and wetter, I bet? . I should probably visit in the rain too, 'though if I'm honest, I intend to spend a good portion of each winter on a very hot beach somewhere else.

Setting up as a sole-trader-contractor when I'm actually an employee is morally dodgy if it comes with tax avoidance "advantages", and I'd lose about three quarters of the benefits in my employment contract to boot - redundancy and very favourable notice terms, for instance. So it's not something I'll do unless it has serious administrative benefits.

[onkko]

Colder and wetter, I bet? . I should probably visit in the rain too, 'though if I'm honest, I intend to spend a good portion of each winter on a very hot beach somewhere else.

Setting up as a sole-trader-contractor when I'm actually an employee is morally dodgy if it comes with tax avoidance "advantages", and I'd lose about three quarters of the benefits in my employment contract to boot - redundancy and very favourable notice terms, for instance. So it's not something I'll do unless it has serious administrative benefits.

Wetter? Its freezing so no water for you. You can forget "wetter" in winter months if you dont count snow and ice what your body manages to melt. And freeze you.
Also think about sun, in northern finland where i live in worst time there is no sun.
Be here, preferably in northest place you think, in winter months

And i mean not tourist stuff so 2 weeks is bit off that, be 4 months in darkness

As tourist is easy to be happy since you know youre out of this soon and can go "AAH and OOH" about how original and great this is, live it.

[Pursuivant]

Setting up as a sole-trader-contractor when I'm actually an employee is morally dodgy if it comes with tax avoidance "advantages", and I'd lose about three quarters of the benefits in my employment contract to boot - redundancy and very favourable notice terms, for instance. So it's not something I'll do unless it has serious administrative benefits.

So your company will then register in Finland, get a Finnish VAT number, a Finnish bank account, and pay your NHS contributions, pension insurance & taxes? Great!

[riku2]

you could call the tax authority (vero.fi) and ask them how it would work, it's a bit unusual in that you'd be an employee but your employer is not in Finland.

Things like the travel allowance, annual holiday etc would be something to consider also. The payments for meals/daily allowance are different in finland to the UK. Under the finnish taxation system you get a lump sum tax free daily allowance. you don't claim for individual meals. if your employer did want to pay you for meals (on production of a receipt) then the finnish tax authority would tax you on that unless the meal is really cheap. Annual holidays would be different too, including the requirement that you take one block of two weeks in a row. I'm not sure if the annual holidays allowance applies to employees of finnish registered companies or any employee living in finland. maternity/paternity leave: that is another awkward one, would the UK employer follow finnish rules (don't reply that this doesn't apply to men since in finland the dad could have months paid leave from work, not just a day off for the birth). The same for sick days when you kid is sick (and you are quite healthy but looking after them at home).

fans of capitals: helsinki is a capital about the size of edinburgh. from the air you will wonder where the people live since there are so many trees. So I wouldn't avoid it on size although i'm not sure what you mean by "capital" feel. It's possible to live in the countryside around helsinki and have a big house quite cheap but within easy reach of capital attractions. Living in cities mostly means living in a flat (in finland living in a flat does not mean "I can't afford a house"). You will be in for a shock at the prices of cars (and people in the UK think cars there are expensive).

the weather: it might be colder outside but flats and houses are infinitely warmer inside. I'd much prefer a finnish house with -20deg outside than british one at +5 outside. Warm bathrooms (heated wet room floors), ventilation (no condensation running down the windows, towels dry out if left hanging up), all rooms equally warm and no draughts. And the heating doesn't only run 6-8 in the morning and 16-22 in the evening. It's on 24h/day in Finland (gasp!)

If you are moving in 2-3 years then the UK will probably still be in the EU at that time, but UK moving from EU -> EEA might change some things about employment and transferring to finland.

[DMC]

So your company will then register in Finland, get a Finnish VAT number, a Finnish bank account, and pay your NHS contributions, pension insurance & taxes? Great!

Unless something has changed in recent years there is no need to do that. It is the way I operated when I first came here, and for a good few years after that. I was an employee of a UK company. The company paid my salary into a UK bank as normal. UK Taxes, national insurance etc were taken from my pay as if I were in the UK. I then declared my earnings and UK taxes to the Finnish authorities. Not a big issue.
The only possible difference between lupine's position and mine was that I kept ownership of a property in the UK and our Finnish home was entirely in my wife's name. I think that made a difference to the way the UK tax authorities viewed my case, but don't know if it made any difference to the Finns. The UK authorities classed me as "resident but not ordinarily resident", which might have made sense to them but never made any sense to me. I don't recall if there was any special classification by the Finnish tax system.

[jahasjahas]

You might want to consider Helsinki, Espoo and Tampere too, just in case you find yourself looking for a new IT job.

[Pursuivant]

So DMC, did you have a KELA card or were you a "tourist"? Just thinking of the scenario say you break a leg and get made redundant. So you have no unemployment benefits... KELA says "tourist-piss off" and JobCentre says "not resident -piss off".

[DMC]

Yes, I had a Kela card.

[lupine]

http://vero.fi/en-US/Precise_informatio ... 2821275%29 has a small section covering a resident employee for a foreign company with no office in Finland - including "If your employer company is not Finnish and does not have a permanent establishment it may not have the obligation to withhold tax for the Finnish Tax Administration"; and this is the route I was looking at. Work are very accommodating, but may draw the line at having to register as a Finnish business and deal with Finnish tax law ^^.

Contract-wise, I don't know what the requirements would be - and hadn't thought about it, actually, so thanks for bringing it up. It'll probably be simplest to just ensure the contract complies with both Finnish and English minimum requirements. I doubt it's a long list of adjustments, our parental leave policy is well beyond that required by UK law, for instance. The long-holiday requirement is interesting, and we don't have that at the moment... I'm sure it can be added.

These days, there's the statutory ties test to determine whether you're resident in .uk; I've gone through it a few times and really can't see how I could be classed as UK-resident with the setup I've got in mind. I'm sure HMRC will take great joy in telling me if they disagree, though! I think I can continue paying national insurance on a voluntary basis to keep my UK state pension going. Assuming it doesn't get abolished before I turn 65^W67^W68, anyway.

I was thinking snow and hail; of course, they aren't always wet! I've been stuck in the UK for far too long . I'm not too worried about the very long nights, although I guess it's something you really need to experience before you can get a feel for how it affects you.

I'm in York at the moment, which is a fairly small copy of Edinburgh in most ways, and it's slightly larger than I'm comfortable with. I'm a little wary of being completely out in the sticks, at least at first, but proximity to a city centre is a negative for me, not a positive. And capitals that I've been to do seem to share a certain something. Hard to put it into words, but I've not liked it so far.

[Pursuivant]

The only thing there I see as a point left you need to make sure is the health care. The EHIC card is valid for 3 months. After that you should be covered by the country you live in. Now as in Finland the employer provides healthcare (either private or via the public) you might want to check the KELA rules and if you need to ask your enployer to buy an insurance or some other arrangement.

The only other thing that will bite you in the ass is when you figure out you want a car and note that "residents may not drive foreign registered cars" - if you intend to bring over a motor you need to do that so its "luggage", after that its taxes.

PS. Do come then update "how stuff is done". What you are doing is getting more and more common and it gets "interesting" when hhe legislations and systems lag behind.

[lupine]

As far as I understand it, the EHIC isn't usable if you're moving abroad with no plans to return, but it's a bit fuzzy - at what point are you no longer ordinarily resident in the UK? The day you leave with no intention to return, or sometime after that? KELA has some information on posted workers, which isn't what I'd be, I think. The EU regulations on the matter talk about eligibility based on the country you're employed in, which in tax terms would be .fi, but it's not clear that they use the same definition as the tax offices... time for me to contact them and ask directly, I think. I'll update on what they say, and with the other stuff in general.

I'm very much hoping that the UK doesn't leave the EU, but if they do, there'd better be a form of grandfathering-in of existing residents of other EU countries... including me . That cursed referendum is one of the reasons for the timetable. Vote and run, or something like it.

I was considering bringing a car over, but if it's not super-simple, I'll probably just sell it early instead. I expect driving in Finland in winter is going to be scary enough without also being in a right-hand-drive car. Numbeo puts the premium on new cars at ~23%, which is a bit eyewatering, but not impossible.

[lupine]

A-ha, a bit of additional digging has clarified the KELA matter.

Links:

https://www.vero.fi/en-US/Individuals/A ... 2817156%29
https://www.varma.fi/en/Yritykset/Yrity ... fault.aspx
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/nic/work/ss-agree.htm
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/ni/volcontr/abroad.htm

From this lot, I understand that I'd pay ~7% of gross income to the Finnish taxman, and be covered by KELA as a result. It's not entirely clear if that 7% is included in the income tax numbers they talk about, or if it's in addition to income tax.I wouldn't count as a posted employee, and wouldn't be liable for UK NICs, or eligible for NHS treatment and other UK benefits - which is fine. If I wanted to keep my UK pension eligibility, I'd pay class 2 NICs in addition. Probably more or less worth it.

I'm hoping to time the move so that it's aligned exactly with the tax year, which seems to be the same in both countries. Making it overlap would offend my sense of neatness and lead to far too much additional paperwork!

[lupine]

Seems the employer would have some obligations, though - https://www.vero.fi/en-US/Companies_and ... 2821532%29 - I read this as them needing to fill in a couple of forms each year and pay TyEL, which appears to be ~20% of gross. That's not so different to employer's + employee's class 1 NICs, it seems, and the administrative burden seems fairly minimal.