Repaying Dutch Student Loan from the UK - HELP!

Ruiter

I've moved to the UK in 2011 and have been working here since. I have a full time job and pay tax in the UK as a UK resident.

Since this year I have started paying back my Dutch Student Loan. This is a rather steep amount of money that I need to pay per month and HMRC seems to have no tax relief options. If it was a UK student loan I'd be paying back £65/month based on my earnings, I now pay £175 instead.

I've already considered these options:

[1] Tax relief in the UK: HRMC says I'm not entitled to any form of tax relief. It has nothing to do with UK income, so doesn't affect my tax code.

[2] Declare Tax in the Netherlands instead of the UK: My employer only runs a UK payroll, so I can't declare my income in the Netherlands instead (which would result in a tax relief).

[3] Transfer my debt to the UK: student loan company doesn't buy debts.

Has anyone dealt with this before or have any suggestions that might help me. It's a massive chunk out of my income and though I'm happy to repay the loan (I knew I would have to when I got it), it seems unfair to repay without the usual taking into account of income/ tax relief benefit.

Many thanks for your help :-)

jamesmorgan

I'm not sure I can be of much assistance, but there are some fundamental differences between the UK and Dutch student loan systems that explain why it is difficult to achieve what you want.

The UK student loan system is largely a graduate tax paid for 30 years. It has a high threshold before payments are due. The net result of this is that initial repayments are low and it is not until your 30's-40's that payments ramp up. There is no tax relief on repayments.

The Dutch system operates more like a personal loan where all the amount borrowed has to be paid back within 15 years. This means that repayments are much higher in the earlier years, but then stop completely much sooner. In the UK, you can't get tax relief for personal loans.

Unfortunately I suspect this is one of the issues of movement between EU countries that have different tax systems/approaches.

amiehall

If you get tax relief on repayments in the Netherlands, the only suggestion is to move back there I'm afraid.

We don't get tax relief on our loan repayments in this country. You also can't expect to repay your loan on UK terms as you haven't taken it from SLC. Basically, I think you're going to have to accept your repayment levels, they are surely as advised to you when you took out the loan?