Spouse visa - Tax refund cheques and savings?

[Pazz]

Hi.

My husband and I are expecting a large tax refund at the end of the financial year and we were wondering how the home office view taxation refunds - as public funds or as earnings?

We were wanting to add our taxation refund cheque to the money we have saved for the visa application - for maintenance etc, but are unsure if we should just in case there may be an issue with it at all - in case it is considered public funds rather than earnings for example. We will not be claiming any kind of social security rebates etc, all the money will be directly as a result of overpaid taxes and nothing else.

Also. My husband is wanting to leave Australia and arrive in the UK with me (he is the UK citizen), which means he may not have work lined up before we leave or before we submit the visa application (he is however doing his best to line up work before we leave). As such we want to have a good amount of money saved up to compensate for this. Over the next few months we should have saved around $18k before the application is submitted. Would this be an ok amount or should we aim for more? If so, how much? $20k? Higher?

Thanks in advance.

[batleykhan]

These are classified as public funds in the UK

9.2 - Public funds

The requirements are designed to prevent the admission of persons who do not have realistic prospects of supporting themselves without recourse to public funds. For the purpose of the Immigration Rules "public funds" means:

* Income Support/Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA)
* Housing and Homelessness Assistance
* Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit
* Child Tax Credit
* Working Tax Credit*
* Child Benefit*
* Attendance Allowance
* Severe Disablement Allowance
* Invalid Care Allowance
* Disability Living Allowance
* Disability Working Allowance
* A Social Fund Payment

As to whether the funds you have quoted are enough for you to support yourselves until such time that you or your spouse find some type of employment in the UK, I would say yes it is enough.