That’s serious stuff. I wonder what it says about the Government’s true view on the longer term base rate? Or are they just putting it up to the banks? Bravo if they are.
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Thanks for the heads up.
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I had seen this rate a few weeks ago and thought to alert the person selling that house, then forgot which thread, tracked it down now it was
so tagged in case of interest?
There’s quite a flux of rate changes at the moment, as well as the 6.2% 1 year fix, there’s Santander easy access at 5.2% - which is actually instant access - that 1% less may pay off if one wants flexibility to buy euros on a ‘good’ rate.
Or family BS has a 9 month fix at 6.1% so might suit verdoux’s timescales better.
Whilst this thread might be handy to post new rates, anyone with GBP savings should really be looking at Money saving expert each week - or even better signing up to the weekly email.
Note the UK rates do outpace the Livre A etc at the mo. - by 1 - 2% even after France tax - so it doesn’t seem to make sense at the moment to buy euro’s to put into the Livre A as one will be losing that much each year.
Only if the £ hit’s more than 1.1750 again might it seem worthwhile to me - unless of course a car purchase or similar is planned near term.
So it might work to put some sterling aside for 9 months / a year and buy euro’s after that…
edit - forgot the Santander account is until 22nd sept - or earlier if sold out.
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There os also the Santader Edge account paying 7%. Its a paid account £3 per month but with cash back on shopping and bills that should be easy to get back.
First Direct is also paying 7% but its a regular saver max £300pm but could work being fed from a lower rate account
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Only on £4k of savings though. Which is a common trick - offer “market beating” rates but on tiny amounts of money.
Again, you can only put in £3.6k in a year, and it “matures” after 12 months and has to be closed. At least the info is honest and says you will only get £136 interest if you put in £300 each month.
Compared to some of the lack luster accounts on offer they are not bad but cherry picking is definitely in order Virgin money has a reasonable rate 5. Something for larger amounts once you have used the others.
I have money in Livret A, LEP and LDDS accounts in France and the interest rates have been plummeting for a while now. Two of them are only 1.5% and the other 2.5%.
So, I’m revisiting whether it’ll be better to get an NS&I account and invest in some of their fixed term bonds which are currently giving just over 4%. I’ll have to pay tax on the interest in France I would have thought, but does anyone with any NS&I investments know if they are taxable in the UK under the dual tax treaty ? If not, I do understand I’ll have to fill in another FFI form.
You also have to take a view on future currency exchange rates. Could be a clue that the market expects a devaluation of approximately the difference - as if a currency is unattractive to hold - or perceived higher risk - is one possible reason for interest rates to be higher in the perceived weaker currency.
But it all depends - hard to time, and on what currency you will have expenses in.
What do people think will happen to the value (compared to other currencies?) of the US Dollar? I can’t make up my mind.
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I just pay tax here.
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I saw somewhere that tax on interest is not deducted at source anymore in the UK on NS&I and bank interest and it’s not a property-related investment so you’d declare on France tax declaration only.
If you look at moneysavingexpert.com they’ll often point up where someone is offering high interest rates - recently I saw over 5% for 1 year offered by that Goldman Sachs former subsidiary that I forgot the name of.
Chase were doing a high rate a while back.
We used to do that and move our savings regularly to get better rates. The problem is that if you forget to move you are generally downgraded to a pathetic rate so can lose the gains quickly. After moving to France there was the added nuisance of form 3916, so we got rid of all but two UK savings accounts.
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Hi
We each have several NS&I savings bonds. They are not taxable in the UK and I personally declare the interest only in our French tax return.
I have never made a treaty claim for them although I think George did suggest last year that strictly speaking one ought to.
As an alternative he suggested mentioning their existence in the white space of your UK return, with a note indicating that under the tax treaty they are taxable only in France. Will try to dredge up George’s suggested wording.
Just found George’s post on the subject:
“Strictly, I think you need to actually claim exemption from UK tax under the treaty. More importantly HMRC seem to think so also. If you look at the Notes to the Non Residence pages, they expect you to make a claim for exemption under a treaty. That said,many do not, as others earlier on this thread have indicated. This probably ‘works’ for income on which no tax has been withheld eg UK bank interest, UK state pension etc. HMRC presumably have better things to do than to chase down people who technically should have made a claim but don’t, since there is ultimately no UK tax at stake. Best advice in my opinion is to make the claim.
If your software doesn’t allow attachments, then as Amanda and I have both suggested, make the claim on (what in the trade we call) the ‘white space’, the area of the return where you can make any comments to HMRC.
I would say something along the lines of “I claim exemption from UK tax on UK interest received in the tax year xxxx/xx under Article 12 of the UK France double tax treaty. I am a tax resident of France and a non resident of the UK.I can confirm that this income [has been/will be] reported to the Service des impôts des Particuliers in France (French HMRC) on my tax return for calendar year xxxx.”
SA109-Notes-2023 (3).pdf (678.3 KB)”
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You posted @George1 on the tricky subject of DTT claims for interest -
“many do not [send a claim form] , as others earlier on this thread have indicated. This probably ‘works’ for income on which no tax has been withheld eg UK bank interest, UK state pension etc. HMRC presumably have better things to do than to chase down people who technically should have made a claim but don’t”
No tax is deducted at source in the UK for interest (possibly of interest to Russian oligarchs) - HMRC seek to recover the interest through self assessment. If no self assessment, they will seek to recover against a tax code against UK income (pension, earnings). If said tax code is attached to UK income NOT already exempted by a DTT form lodged and therefore issued a NT tax code then HMRC may well adjust the tax code against that (non-exempt) income (such as LG pensions) to recover the tax on the (already exempt) interest income. Cue phone calls etc… (send us a form??)
Ultimately, they could adjust the NT codes on the tax treaty exempt income sources - “Hello HMRC, why are you now taxing my treaty exempted pension income?” - “oh, to charge tax on your treaty exempt interest income”. Common sense has been retained so far for us on our treaty exempt pensions…
I hope the above is as clear as the French grammar rules for the tense futur antérieur (sorry Vero we try, we try but that tense is vraiment ‘prise de tête’)
My take is, if you are in UK self assessment, never ever leave it, because you can adjust all these income sources within it each year. No UK employment or rental income - just make a self employment section, zero return, (or a few 100£, first 1K is exempt) to keep the free filing from abroad.
edit - I have just never ever selected the interest part of the SA return, works for me.
Hi
We both have fairly substantial NS&I savings (we’d been planning to move back).
Husband does self assessment because he has UK rental income. It’s way over the personal allowance limit so he pays some tax on that in the UK.
Up until now we’ve never mentioned the NS&I interest in his SA return.
I don’t do SA because I have no UK income other than the NS&I interest which is below the personal allowance limit. I don’t declare it anywhere in the UK. Only in France.
This arrangement has worked for us so far and I’m reluctant to start declaring the interest to HMRC in case it opens a can of worms.
Indeed, I’ve been looking at various products in the UK and most of the ones above 4% are with introductory bonuses that end after 6 to 12 months and then you’re usually on half of that. The NS&I bonds seem to be at the top end of what’s available for a fixed interest rate.
Does your OH claim the married person’s allowance?
Yes, I transferred part of my personal allowance to him. Since I’m not using it.
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