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comparative tax advice - UK - Belgium
contemplating a return to UK, anyone know an expert (or two experts who'll be sitting together) who can in one go tell me the pros and cons of Belgian and UK tax system for individual in a pension situation? No company, no freelance, no tricky bits.... just pension and pension pot... lots of people advise on one or the other but cannot find anyone for both... there is not just me looking for this advice either...
I would certainly not base a lifestyle decision on what tax you will have to pay. The whole cost-quality of living shebang is far more important.
We moved here several years ago as UK pensioners because we thought the lifestyle would be much more relaxed here.
Not only has the presumption proved to be correct but, rather to our surprise, we have found ourselves better off financially as well.
The final advantage in Belgium is that health facilities are much more accessible, they may be "free" in the UK but the sick, and especially the elderly sick, tend to be treated as second class citizens.
You need to speak with a tax accountant. The folks at www.taxconsult.be are pretty good. I know that they know the US personal tax system well, not sure what their expertise is re the U.K., but they do have a lot of English customers. Otherwise a google search threw up this firm as the first answer:
http://www.petersonsims.com/belgium-petersonsims-tax-partner.html
Otherwise all of the large accounting firms have people who specialize in personal taxation and if you pick a UK one such as BDO, they will probably be able to find someone who can assist (but it could be expensive).
http://www.bdointernational.com/Services/Tax/private-client-tax/Pages/de...
