Do you regret moving abroad?

[Flumux]

Do you think life would have been better in the UK?

We love London but hate paying an effective 50% tax rate. So we are looking at doing a few years in Cayman.

It should be good experience professionally but may be seen as a slight step back in terms of quality.

I have lived and worked in five different countries. I liked them all in different ways. I'd say all have their pros and cons.and in my eyes the UK is not worse than any of them.

God, what a shrivelled worldview.

Not for a second. Been gone now for 15 years and have no intention of ever returning. UK is currently in decline and is suffering from an identity crisis of severe proportions. Why would I move back? I have an excellent large house for a quarter of UK cost with a massive garden. Have well maintained roads, fabulous schools, public transport that works, a wonderful health service etc... I'd be crazy to move back. All the IT systems are joined up here so everything is done online and all governments departments that should share data can. The political system seems to be made up of grown ups instead of horrible people shouting and each other to score cheap points.

Nothing I see or read in the news makes me want to go back.

@LongIslander
Are you going to answer my earlier question:
is moving away because of Brexit a good reason or a shrivelled world view?

I agree with @ladykale.

@WhodoVoodoo i wanna move to the country you are in. Which is where?

Denmark, just outside of the capital.

No regrets at all, despite the general MN view of the US (which is mostly untrue). I came here knowing it would be got good. It wasn’t a financially motivated move, although I do have a very nice life here. I’m doing the same job as I was doing in the UK but making considerably more. I don’t know anyone that I worked with back at the office in the UK who has a house with a pool, can afford to eat out several times a week, has a cleaner and a gardener, etc. The weather is perfect here too.

Where are you out of interest. Sounds idyllic.

Ah see you answered earlier. So just out of Copenhagen?

Where do you live?

I wonder how many of those saying posters have a “shrivelled view” are high earners themselves?

Not many is my guess.

UK provides a decent quality of life if you are a low earner but once you aspire to anything better than the minimum, good luck.

The UK is also great if you have inherited wealth as your standard of living is guaranteed through rent seeking.

If you’re a clever working class or middle class professional who wants to eat the fruits of their hard work? Those fruits are not for you silly goose, they are for other people to enjoy.

This is very accurate

Spain

Imagine being so consumed about paying tax on your higher than average salary which could if properly applied improve essential public services that you will move thousands of miles away from a city you love to a place that doesn't directly tax you but is vastly more expensive on everything else.

I do accept the sunshine is a good reason although that doesn't seem to be your motivation.

Also I am a HR tax payer in case that's relevant.

If you are a higher rate tax payer, you’re on less than £125k. That’s a good salary but unfortunately no where near enough to afford a family home in a nice part of London and private school fees.

I think a lot of people complaining about tax are additional rate tax payers.

I was a very low earner, my food budget for quite a while was £12 a week. I would like to know where my good quality of life was hiding. I’m academic, I’m from a very poor family, I decided to go to university and become an actuary.

I was earning less than £125k as a lone parent, I boughy a family home in a nice part of London, I could have afforded private schooling if I wanted to, as well as maintaining our standard of living and holidays.

We've been abroad for 18 years. Whilst I miss the UK in some respects, I have no regrets at all. Uni tuition fees are 800 euros a year, free kindergarten starts at 2.5 and there is cheap wrap round care and many holiday clubs provided. I can get a same day GP appointment and see a dentist quickly. Medical care is 2nd to none. Public transport is cheap and efficient and wide spread. Tax is higher though but I don't begrudge that. There are tax breaks for larger families though and child benefit increases for each child you have. And you get it til they leave education. I miss the UK countryside, pubs and fish and chips. And english sausages. When i go back home, it doesn't seem like the same country that we left anymore.

I was the person who said that moving abroad purely to avoid tax indicated a 'shrivelled' world view. I was earning just under £80k in my last job. After which I did move back to my home country, because Brexit decimated my field and I got increasingly tired of the xenophobic microaggressions which ramped up where I was living in aftermath of the referendum. I earn less where I live now than I did in the UK, but that wasn't the reason I moved countries.

In the EU country where I live taxes are significantly higher than in the UK and kick in at much lower income brackets.

BUT, childcare costs around 25% of what friends in London paid, school wrap around care is stupidly cheap (around €2 a day for childcare up to 6pm) AND deductible from your taxes, healthcare works and waiting times are massively lower than in the UK, children have access to holiday activities at a reasonable price (often part paid by the local council or your employer and also deductible from your taxes), university education is almost free, public transport is way cheaper and runs generally pretty well....

In no way do I regret leaving the UK. I plan to never return.

Colleague has just returned from Caymen. Sky high crime rates mean you can’t really stay out late or do much. Gets dark early every day, v hot and not much going on. Lots of issues with society in terms of alcoholism and machetes

Which country?

No we don't regret leaving at all, the decline of the UK is really worrying

Goodness, where was your colleague hanging out? 🤣
I'd be interested as having lived in Cayman for nearly 17 years, I've managed to never have an encounter with any machete wielding maniacs, nor danger out late at night (alone or with others!)

Sure there is often trouble at local bars, but unless you desperately enjoy listening to rampant soca or dancehall in dark bars it's easy to avoid.

True there's "not much to do" (other than getting involved in snorkeling, scuba, beaching, Gaelic football, footballs, dancing, rugby, sailing, martial arts, movies, festivals, art clubs, and live music to name a few), as far as it getting dark early all the time, the sunset is between 6.30pm in winter and 7.30pm in summer, the consistency of which is far better than traipsing home in the dark at 4pm in winter.

Just my two cents as a British Caymanian...

Not regret, exactly, but we will move back to the UK to establish 'permanent home'. I've spent most of the past two decades living overseas in various places.

The UK has a lot going for it culturally, and ultimately is home. I'm sad that it feels it's lost its dynamism.

On tax: I don't resent paying taxes. But the UK's high rate at the top is one reason I'll be switching from a high-paid role into something much lower paid when we move back. I think that will be better for society but it's certainly not better for the public finances.

On Cayman: I'd worry you would be bored. If you are in finance and looking for lower taxes, is Jersey, IoM or Hong Kong an option?