Lump sum from USA to UK

quintain

I will be bringing $170k usd held in my USA HSBC account into the UK shortly.
I also have a HSBC Account in the UK.


My questions which I welcome your advice on are:
1. best safe transfer route for money
2. best place/s to put money in UK, keeping in mind maximum £85k account guarantee


The money can be placed in 3 month notice account.
Low risk investment required.
Money can be placed in either single account (me) or joint account (my wife & I) or separate accounts
My wife & I are low rate tax payers, retired, UK citizens.


I welcome any advice you can give me.

Cook_County

Where does the money come from? Do you owe tax in the US?

xylophone

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/72657085#Comment_72657085

quintain

It is a house sale of some time ago...no tax is due.

quintain

Yes, it is the same question, life and many matters have got in the way of money issues.

born_again

Easiest way transfer from HSBC to HSBC. Then decide what you are going to do.
Is this likely to be a joint account? As that would be £170K protection.

Also FSCS protect certain qualifying temporary high balances up to £1 million for up to six months from when the amount was first deposited.
https://www.fscs.org.uk/how-we-work/temporary-high-balances

quintain

Thank you, I was not aware of the £1m short term protection.


Yes also to HSBC from USA to UK but I will need to check the exchange rate is as good as can be found.


Again thank you for the up to date information.

Cook_County

quintain wrote: »

It is a house sale of some time ago...no tax is due.

Because the Pound has fallen so much there is often a gain in Pounds even if there is a loss in dollars. You may want to budget for UK CGT to be paid.

quintain

Yes to the pound falling.
Life & circumstances almost allowed me to carry out this trx about a month ago when it was 1.2 BUT other more important things got in the way.

wmb194

Cook_County wrote: »

Because the Pound has fallen so much there is often a gain in Pounds even if there is a loss in dollars. You may want to budget for UK CGT to be paid.

CGT on FX gains on transfers between bank accounts hasn't been due since the 2012-13 tax year (and losses cannot be offset against other gains). Any CGT liability would be calculated on the property that was sold and would be calculated at the prevailing rates on the dates it was bought and sold.

https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/capital-gains-manual/cg78321

Cook_County

wmb194 wrote: »

CGT on FX gains on transfers between bank accounts hasn't been due since the 2012-13 tax year (and losses cannot be offset against other gains). Any CGT liability would be calculated on the property that was sold and would be calculated at the prevailing rates on the dates it was bought and sold.

https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/capital-gains-manual/cg78321

Agreed. I was thinking of and only referring to the sale of the property, not the movement of currency after the property was sold.