Thank you.

I'm going to ring Inland Revenue tomorrow and see what they say.


Regards

The cheapest way to transfer the money would be through a good currency specialist, the most expensive way would be with a bad one and the safest way is through your banks.

For advice, you can either talk to the Inland Revenue (their call centres tend to be very helpful) or you could appoint a tax specialist from an accountancy firm to give advice. Generally the larger the accountancy firm, the more expensive the advice.

In my view, you should be honest about the situation and should not start trying to pretend that the money is a gift.

I am not going to guess at what taxes will be payable in which country. You should talk to an expert for that.

Hi,

I am a Greek national but have been living, working and paying taxes in the UK since 2000. I recently sold a property in Greece and I want to transfer around 400k euros to my UK bank account to buy a house here.

I've asked around and I think that transferring the money either using a bank or a FX specialist should be no problem, but if you can offer any pointers on that I'd appreciate it.

What I don't know though is what happens with Inland Revenue. I've been told that I will probably have to pay capital gains tax at 18% on the increase in value of the property from the date of transfer and that any tax paid in Greece will be used to offset part or all of the tax. Is this correct?

According to Greek law capital gains tax does not incur for properties purchased before 2006, and since the property was passed on to me by my grandmother in 1997 no tax was paid in Greece at the time of sale. However, if that makes any difference, tax was paid at the time of the property transfer (which was paid by the developer who built a block of flats in the land where the old house was).

- What would be the best way to get the money over here and pay as less as possible?
- What documentation would I need?
- Would it be better (or indeed legal) to declare it as a gift from my father since the money is in his bank account anyway?
- Also, who would be best person to talk and get some advice from?

Thanks,


Theo