Finnish tax and social security contributions

Hello SpencerWatts.

Welcome to Expat.com!

I hope other members will be able to help you.

Thank you,
Aurélie

Hi
i moved here permanently a month or so ago as well. 
Have you told HMRC that you have left the country via their declaration?
Basically you should not really be paying tax under both systems.
Your NI payments in the UK are only really relevant to your accrued state pension, for what its worth....
Have you applied for Finnish residency? I have found this to be a very onerous, and unhelpful, despite being marring a Finn in Finland 10yrs ago! My application is now in - there is a 3 to 4 month wait for what is then a temporary permit.
The reason I mention this is you cannot get a 'national insurance number' (closest translation I can give you) without the permit/visa.  it is so difficult to do anything in Finland without this, even paying tax!
We bought a house and even the purchase tax (stamp duty) was hard for the bank to pay! Funny really because you are legally obliged to pay this but the authorities found it difficult to deal with it.
I can only have a basic bank account, could not pay import tax on something - my wife had to do it, most frustratingly could not even enrol on an intense Finnish course in Helsinki.
get in touch, where are you?
cheers and good luck

Hi Ducatis,

Many tanks for your reply. I haven't told HMRC that I've left the country but I haven't paid any tax this year yet, I'll leave that for my UK accountant to deal with, I'm considering keeping up my NI contributions for the pension, though the pension age may be around 85 by the time I get to retire the way things are going...

I also had problems with buying a house as they needed me to have a social security number as you mentioned, I managed to sort this out after two days on arriving which was faster than I thought, we have a child together and she was already registered in Finland so that makes things a lot easier. So well be moving into our new home in Hyvinkaa within the next couple of weeks, dealing with the banks was more difficult than dealing with the local magistrates which I found surprising.

I just need to know what's the most "tax efficient" way of paying myself, as I own my own company my salary can be whatever I decide. But I don't know how dividends from a foreign country are taxed, or if at all. Dividends are taxed at 10% in the UK but then I shouldn't be paying tax in the UK if I'm not there...

I'm going to call the Finnish tax office this week and see if they can help.

My Finnish classes start in January,looks daunting to learn

Hi Spencer

We have a 20mth old boy and one on the way....

We also looked at Hyvinkää - nice town, eventually bought in Emäsalo (Porvoo)

I would be very interested to know where your Finnish class is, and how you came about it? Its tough language but can definitely be learnt, I did a course in 2000/2001

I have had a problem enrolling.... Well on a course I want to do at any rate.

I do have a working knowledge of Finnish and I'm certainly no language master!

You are right about paying paying tax as well

In the last few days I have come across some expat stuff on Facebook which looks interesting.

If I can be of any help feel free to contact me, I've been coming for 10+ years....

Gareth
garethjhammett@gmail.com