A bit tricky questions ???????????

[zhassan]

Hi All,
My question is a bit tricky in terms of earnings. Altough I posted to this forum a couple of months ago , but didn't receive any satisfactory response.
My questions are

1:- The super fund (old age benefit) which is normally part of remuneration package (in Australia) can be considered as part of earnings? It is clearly mentioned in salary slip but not considered as taxable income as this fund can only be withdrawn at the time of retirement (after deduction of a small % of tax).

2:- I worked for a UK company remotely (also had business trips to UK on company's behalf)as a part time contractor about 3 years ago (I have a contract copy) , can this be considered as a UK work experience?


I hope I will get responses this time.

Cheers,
Zia

[gordon]

Re 1: If these are your contributions to the superannuation scheme, e.g. x% of your gross earnings, then it counts - the caseworkers look for gross earnings on the payslips. (You cannot claim your employer's parallel contributions, however.) You will want to explain in a letter why your gross earnings (on the payslips) differ from the taxable earnings, as a function of the pre-tax retirement deductions, indicated on the tax return.

Re 2: I think you can only claim UK experience points from earnings if you're to claim UK earnings in the application.

AG

[zhassan]

Hi Gordon,
Thanks fo your feedback on the issue ;Now in regards to your comments
>> Super funds are only contibuted by Employer (at top of taxable salary).So if we want to define Salary Package in Australia , it's

Salary Package= Salary + Superannuation funds

In super there is no contribution from employee; only employer contibutes towards Super as a part of remuneration package .This is because of the Govt. legislation that every employer mush pay super for it's employees, which is 9% minimum. However my Employer pays more (14%).

>> I thought that anyone who has worked for a UK based company irrespective of physical presence can claim UK experience point?

Regards,
Zia

[gordon]

I'm not sure about this, but I think that your gross earnings should be taken as your proper salary. For instance, where I work (in the US), remuneration occurs as follows, for example:

Gross earnings 100 (salary)
+ Employer contribution to government-sponsored social security 6.35 (like your superannuation fund)
+ Employer contribution to contributory retirement 5 (also retirement)
+ Employer contribution to my private health and dental insurance coverage 8
Total remuneration 119.35

The contribution to the government-sponsored social security is mandated, but I cannot claim it as part of my gross earnings, just as I could not claim the employer's (voluntary) contributions to retirement and insurance. Gross earnings (100) would be all that I could claim in the HSMP application. In relation to an example as above, does your payslip indicate 'gross earnings' as 100 or 106.35 or something else?

UK experience can be claimed by earning a UK degree in the last five years or by earning UK income in the last 15 months. I'm not sure that this latter is restricted in any way by location, but from you wrote earlier, the fact that you earned UK income three years ago, as far as I understand it, could not count in this application, unless that income source had continued since then into the 12-month period for which you were claiming income. UK experience implicitly has a time limit (in parallel, those who earned UK degrees more than five years ago can't claim UK experience points either).

AG

[zhassan]

Okey! now I think I have understood the point, which is superannuation fund can't be claimed as part of earnings.

Also the work I done for the UK based company is not helpful either.

So I have to wait until some rules/criteria changes for HSMP category. Currently I think I only got 65 points.

Anyway thanks for your response.



Cheers,
Zia-ul-Hassan

[zhassan]

Okey! now I think I have understood the point, which is superannuation fund can't be claimed as part of earnings.

Also the work I done for the UK based company is not helpful either.

So I have to wait until some rules/criteria changes for HSMP category. Currently I think I only got 65 points.

Anyway thanks for your response.



Cheers,
Zia-ul-Hassan