Financial Help
Please get in touch with us if you are at risk of becoming destitute. The government has provided destitution funding for HK BN(O) visa holders that can only be accessed by Local Authorities.
More information on destitution support
Do not hesitate to email us on hongkongbno@warwickshire.gov.uk if you need support.
Taxation
The UK tax system is made up of several different taxes. Some of them are direct taxes and some are indirect taxes.
Direct taxes are charged on income, profits or gains and are either deducted at source or paid directly to the tax authorities. Indirect taxes which are levied on goods and services. These taxes are administered by HM Revenue and Customs.
- For Income Tax rates and Personal Allowances, please refer to gov.uk/income-tax-rates
- For Capital Gains Tax: what you pay it on, rates and allowances, please refer to gov.uk/capital-gains-tax
- For how Inheritance Tax works: thresholds, rules and allowances, please refer to gov.uk/inheritance-tax
- For Corporation Tax, please refer to gov.uk/corporation-tax
Tax Years
- Tax years for individuals run from 6 April to the following 5 April
- Tax years for companies run from 1 April to the following 31 March
Self Assessment for Individuals
If you are:
- self-employed
- a partner in a business
- a company director
and have income on which tax is due that is not taxed under Pay As You Earn (PAYE), and/or
- you have property income
- you want to claim tax relief on employment expenses over £2,500 in a year
- you have to pay a tax charge on your child benefit
- you have untaxed savings income
- you have capital gains tax to pay which hasn’t already been paid in-year
you should tell HMRC about your taxable income and gains for a tax year by completing a Self Assessment tax return.
For detailed information on Self Assessment, please refer to the GOV.UK website.
Pensions
There are three main ways you might build up a pension, State Pension, workplace pensions and ones you set up yourself, that can help to give you an income when you retire.
State pension
You can take it when you reach State Pension age as it is a regular payment from the UK government.
The amount you get depends on your National Insurance record and how many ‘qualifying’ years of National Insurance payments you have. This includes National Insurance contributions that you pay when you are working and contributions that are credited to you when you are unable to work.
You can get an estimate of how much State Pension you could get at gov.uk/check-state-pension
Workplace pensions
A workplace pension is a way of saving for your retirement that’s arranged by your employer. Defined benefit pensions and defined contribution pensions are two types of workplace pension that employers use.
More information can be found via moneyhelper.org.
To work out how much you and your employer put in, you can use MoneyHelper’s contributions calculator.
Pensions you set up for yourself
If you’re not employed, you can set up your own pension. You can do this if you want to save for your retirement and already have one or more workplace pension.
Please see a general awareness pensions webinar (in Cantonese) hosted by Northeast Hongkongers Club (funded by our partners at West Midlands Strategic Migration Partnership) that explains state pension, workplace pension and auto-enrolment. The webinar is delivered by Phil Adams, the Group Partnership Manager for the Department of Work and Pensions:
General awareness pensions webinar
Information Sessions
A number of information sessions have been held with local partners on a range of financial topics including:
Inheritance tax
Non property investments
Taxation (online workshop)