Preparing to move abroad

Wob_2

Hello, I hope this is in a suitable place!

Soon I shall leave the UK to teach English. I have kept my options open 'til now, but I think I will go either to an EU country or Japan. I'm trying to do as much as I can before committing to a specific location so I have no dates or pay details as yet.

I know I must tell my tax office I am moving and probably get form P85, but I have some questions before I contact them.

First though, a point of confusion:

On this page:

http
search3.openobjects
dot com
forwardslash kbroker
forwardslash hmrc
forwardslash locator/locator.jsp?type=1

I am supposed to put my 3 digit tax office number so I know which office to contact. At first I didn't see the box so I placed my town name and postcode. This resulted in:

Suffolk and North Essex Tax Office

Customer Operations
Pay As You Earn and Self Assessment
Lynx House
1 Northern Road
Cosham
Portsmouth
PO6 3XA

Fair enough, but then I saw the 3 digit tax office number box so I cleared previous details and used that. This time it resulted in:

Lothians Tax Office

Grayfield House
5 Bankhead Avenue
Sighthill
Edinburgh
EH11 4AE

Then I figured it was time to look more closely at all my paperwork which resulted in this:

Lothians Area
Saughton House
Broomhouse Drive
Edinburgh
EH11 3XG

All of them feature different telephone numbers, of course! Common sense dictates I should use the details on my paperwork, but I have posted this before wasting precious Pay As You Go credit in case anyone has something to say about it!

However, here are my basic questions and real reasons for posting...

I have some old P60s and in red ink it says DO NOT DESTROY. Like a good boy I've been keeping them but they stretch from 1997 to 2009!
Question 1: Surely I can shred all my P60s now except for the one marked 2009?

I also have no less than THREE P45s! One from 1996, another from 2004 and the other from 2009 when I left my last job before going to college.
Since leaving college I have been getting JSA and everything has been sorted out ok.
Question 2: The Benefits People will have another P45 to give when I sign off, right? Yum, that'll be FOUR!
Question 3: These three P45s are irrelevant and can be destroyed, right?
Question 4: what do I do with my P60 and P45 (or indeed, P60 and P45 collections) when I move abroad, keep them for if/when I get back presumably?

I know some of those questions might seem overly naive but I just want to be clear and sure whilst taking with me a minimum of stuff.
I'm giving everything up for this move and change of career, so I don't intend to be back in the UK for residency for some time (certainly more than 3 months, almost certainly more than 6 months, most likely more than a year and probably for good or until retirement or I miss the UK).

I'm going for lifestyle and where I know I can always get work ya see?

Thanks so much for reading this, any advice is much appreciated!

fengirl_2

There has been a lot of tax office reorganisation, so just send the form to the latest address that you have - it will find its way to the right office.
You keep your P60's for 6 years - have them safely stored somewhere for when you come back.
Your only useful P45 is the latest one.
I suppose you realise that you will remain resident in the Uk for tax purposes unless you are out of the UK until 6 April 2012?

Wob_2

fengirl wrote: »

There has been a lot of tax office reorganisation, so just send the form to the latest address that you have - it will find its way to the right office.
You keep your P60's for 6 years - have them safely stored somewhere for when you come back.
Your only useful P45 is the latest one.
I suppose you realise that you will remain resident in the Uk for tax purposes unless you are out of the UK until 6 April 2012?

Thank you very much for the info!

I didn't realise that actually, it seems a bizarrely long time to be taxable by the UK if I'm not here and I hope it doesn't cause issues when I begin earning in another country!