Application using income from two countries

[gilgr097]

Hi,

I am looking at applying for HSMP. I am a NZ citizen who has just recently come to work in the US. I have my income tax, bank statements and letter from my previous employee stating salary in NZ for the last year.

As I have only been working in the US for 6 months I am a little concerned about how I would go about applying for HSMP. Is it possible to use my income from NZ (6 months) and US (6 months) to support my application? And what kind of issues could I face? I see US and NZ are differently classed, income wise, hence affecting the number of points generated.

Cheers

[SYH]

Do you not want to take advantage of the Working Holiday Scheme visa available to commonwealth members, if you are under 30?

[gilgr097]

I was a gap student in the UK about 10 years ago and I was mis advised and told to use that as my visa, so unfortunately that is not an option.

[gordon]

Would you qualify for HSMP on the basis of the NZ income, or the US income ? You could ask them to prorate your income, but you'd have to select the proper 12-month period to justify the proration.

AG

[gilgr097]

I qualify with 95 points using my NZ income for tax year April 06 - March 07, and 75 points using my existing US. But I havent been here long so would have to wait to file taxes next year to get a tax return. I am a little concerned about waiting to use my US incom. How would they prorate my income?

[gordon]

They would prorate the income of the country where you'd worked longer. Let's say that you were in NZ through December, and since then in the US. The window of time in which you could claim income is from April 06 through June 07 (15 months). You choose a twelve-month, say June 06 - May 07: seven months in NZ and 5 months in the US. You take the earnings from the 7 months in NZ and find the 12 month equivalent (take the 7 months earnings, divide by seven, and multiply by 12).

If you only have 75 points if you claim your US income, you should consider applying soon so that you can still claim NZ income as a basis for proration. Waiting until Feb to get the US tax return is a long way off and you don't know whether the benchmarks for points will shift, potentially leaving you disqualified at that point.

And even if you want to stay in the US a bit longer, you could, even with an HSMP approval in hand; you could wait up to six months after the HSMP approval to get entry clearance to the UK (unless that gets changed).

AG

[jimmy50]

They would prorate the income of the country where you'd worked longer. Let's say that you were in NZ through December, and since then in the US. The window of time in which you could claim income is from April 06 through June 07 (15 months). You choose a twelve-month, say June 06 - May 07: seven months in NZ and 5 months in the US. You take the earnings from the 7 months in NZ and find the 12 month equivalent (take the 7 months earnings, divide by seven, and multiply by 12).

With regards to pro-rating - if for your chosen 12 month period it's not 'exactly' 7 months in country a and 5 in country b, but rather about 7.5 months and 4.5 months, do you calculate it the most exact manner or just round to the nearest month? How accurate must we get?