bank (US) to bank (UK) wire transfer of money

I read this thread which is a similar situation to mine:

http://talk.uk-yankee.com/index.php?topic=36536.0

I want to first liquidate (that means sell, I found out) some investments I have which will then go into my US checking account.  Then I want to wire that into my fiance's UK checking account so he can pay off a big loan.

 From the thread I was reading I see the best bet would be a bank to bank wire of funds.  Can I do this from my bank account into my fiance's bank account (my name is not on his account yet) without him signing anything?

It shouldn't be a problem - we had to wire money to the estate agent here in the UK before we moved over - no-one else's signature was required.

I ended up doing something like this when we bought some windows for our last house.  I used an American Credit card to pay for them and the exchange rate was pretty good.  Anyway you can pay with a CC?

The Wiring money though sounds great, much better then Paypal which is what I usually use and they charge a lot.

Ok, it seems pretty straightforward then. 

Stacey:  We don't want to pay with a credit card--we are trying to eliminate CC debt at the moment.

Ok, it seems pretty straightforward then. 

Stacey:  We don't want to pay with a credit card--we are trying to eliminate CC debt at the moment.

Sorry, the reason I paid with CC was because I could pay it off right away from the wedding money that I had in my US bank account.

So I was thinking if you were liquidating you could use that money to pay off the debt.

Just one big caution.

1. Selling the investments could give rise to a US tax bill
2. Bringing the proceeds to the UK could also make part of the remittance subject to the UK tax, depending on the amounts and if they are US stocks or mutual funds or cash.  (Even bringing money here via Paypal or using US credit cards is considered a remittance by the UK Revenue, so do think about tax implications as well).

This is an area I know very little about and don't have much time to learn.  I was hoping to get it done and wired by early September.

Guya: can you please fill me in a bit about the tax issue?  If I'd do a wire transfer from my bank account (US) to my fiance's (UK), would we then have to pay a tax on that money aside from the fee(s) we may have to pay for the transfer?  If so, is this a high tax? 

Thanks!

If you are UK resident but not domiciled within the UK and remit income or gains to the UK then that income or gain is taxable on remittance and gets reported on your UK tax return for the tax year ending 5 April 2008.

If we are only talking about a couple of dollars in bank interest then this won't be worth reporting; but of course you wouldn't want to mention the true numbers on an open forum so we can't know if it is $2 or $2,000 of income or gains coming over.

If the income/gains are all in one bank account then HMRC in the UK will normally treat the first thing that comes to the UK as the taxable remittance. 

You can set against the UK tax the US tax payable on the same income, but for many of us UK tax rates are higher than US rates so remittances will result in some UK tax payable.

OK...let's see if I've got this right:  if I transfer savings from my US bank account into my fiance's UK bank account (we don't yet have a joint account, so it will be into his), that amount will most likely be subject to UK tax, and my fiance will need to report the amount transferred in on his tax return.  (I'm still pretty clueless about UK tax returns: are these done in a simliar fashion to US income taxes?)  Since it's not advised that I mention the amount of funds, does anyone know the percentage that we can expect to be taxed?  If we'd instead do the transfer more slowly (ie. not all at once) via ATM's or cash transactions, would we still have to report the amount similarly and be taxed on it, or just instead face equal deductions due to exchange and ATM fees?  (Let me make clear: I'm not trying to "get out of" paying tax here, but just trying to understand how I can make the most of my weak dollars and little savings.) 

It'd be great if there were a chart of fees/rates of exchange for each possible method of transfer/withdrawl (e.g. bank-to-bank, wire transfer, paypal, debit card, ATM withdrawl, post office exchange).  I seem to hear different stories about which is best on any given day, and comparing options is TOUGH.  I guess I'm just afraid I'll choose one way, and then find out that I could have saved tons by doing something else. 

Any advice from people who have done this transfer and not felt like they made a poor choice would be much appreciated!

Andee:  I hope all goes well with your money issues, too!