British Expats have rated Australia as the best country to live in away from home. The South Pacific island/nation/continent has taken the cake in the survey, which was conducted by the Centre for Future Studies:

More than three quarters of expats cited the better environment and quality of life for their children as the number one reason for living in Australia.

Nine out of 10 said it was the overall lifestyle which kept them there, while four out of five said the weather was one of the top five reasons for their contented state.

Additionally, the survey found that it is simply easier to do things like get a job or a mortgage in Australia than other countries.

How many people out there know where Luanda is? No?

It’s in Angola, and it’s the most expensive city to live in for expats. Here’s an excerpt:

The Angolan capital Luanda is the most expensive city for corporate expats, according to a study Tuesday which includes three African cities in the top 10 for the first time.

Tokyo is second and Moscow and Geneva are also among the most costly cities in the world. At the other end of the scale Pakistan’s second city Karachi is the cheapest, according to consultants Mercer.

It’s amazing to see how this list evolves over the years in a rapidly shifting global economy and political landscape.

The Cost of Living Survey on Mercer.com

Britons abroad may take advantage of the benefits system, according to this article by MailOnline.

Taxpayers are paying millions of pounds to Britons living abroad who claim they are too sick to work.

Expats living in countries including Spain, France, Cyprus and Portugal are claiming incapacity benefits of nearly £46million a year.

Incredibly many of the 10,000 claimants have been receiving the payments for more than five years without having their cases reviewed.

This is obviously reminiscent of similar articles about British expats receiving benefits to help pay for heat abroad.

Looks like a down economy sends the government scouring for every possible bit of savings, and these expats are unlikely to find much sympathy from those who aren’t also living abroad in similar circumstances.

British Expats in France have increased online orders of groceries – even French foods – from British grocery stores. As absurd as it may seem, there are all kinds of implications for the fluctuations in currencies that we’ve seen recently:

Simon Goodenough, the director of Sterling Shopping, a delivery firm based in Brackley, Northamptonshire, says his company has 2,500 British customers in France and is running five delivery vans full of food to France each week.

“We deliver food from Waitrose, Sainsbury’s and Marks and Spencer, but by far the biggest is Asda,” said Goodenough. “We deliver into south-west France from Poitiers downwards where it is estimated 25,000 Britons now live. We sit in our depot sometimes looking at the things people have bought and just laugh at the craziness of it all. We have seen croissants and baguettes in people’s shopping bags. And we have delivered bottles of Bergerac wine bought from Sainsbury’s to a customer in Bergerac. We even have a few French customers who have now heard about what we do. They love things like curries and tacos, which they just can’t get in France.”

It’s great that these expats have taken control of their finances and take advantage of these market conditions when they are favorable. Too many don’t, unfortunately.

Expats in Japan are trying to help close Futenma, the U.S. military base on Okinawa.

While expats did not want to speak officially about the controversy there, they have privately voiced their opinions. Here is what the author hears from the expat community:

Privately, everyone seems to have a view: I heard opinions ranging from calls for all bases to close, to criticism of the Okinawans for building a city around a military installation. Citing the “sensitivity” of the issue, several people declined to talk to me.

The actions of some of these expats demonstrates one of the differences between expats and tourists… individual expats can have an impact on what happens in there destination countries. After claiming the political career of a prime minister, it will be interesting to see how this situation is resolved. Also, interesting how the economic and employment impact isn’t getting as much play in the media as other aspects of the story.

Expat Tax Day approaches for American expats everywhere!

As the big, bad day approaches, it’s critical to ensure that expats have done all of their due diligence to ensure they have not – and will not – run afoul of the law.

David McKeegan, of Greenback Tax Services offers the following sobering advice to American expats:

“The US government is using a new law – the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) to force foreign financial institutions, trusts and foreign corporations to provide information on undisclosed assets held abroad,” said David McKeegan, founder of Greenback Tax Services. “If those institutions fail to do so the IRS can hit them with a 30% withholding tax on ALL INCOME originating in the US. This is a very compelling reason for the banks to comply with this request and provide data to the IRS on all US Citizens who have accounts with them outside the USA.”

Given the financial climate and the stated objectives of the Obama administration, it’s imperative that expats evaluate their financial affairs, and for many this means finding the appropriate expat tax service. Be honest with yourself as to whether or not you can accurately manage it on your own!

It seems that there is a growing trend of expatriates that are “localized,” meaning that they receive payment and benefits based upon the economy of their host country rather than their native lands.

Over the years, we’ve noticed this as an increasing trend among expats that use ExpatExchange.com, though we’ve never done specific research of our audience on this topic in our expat finance surveys.

New research by ECA International, however, has investigated this trend and confirms the anecdotal information we’ve been seeing and reading about. An article on AsiaOne.com highlights this trend of expats being paid local rates:

The Singapore specific results were released yesterday, but come from ECA International’s latest poll of 200 companies with 8,000 expatriates worldwide in Q3 last year.

Hong Kong registered a similar spike in the proportion of companies choosing to benchmark expat pay locally, from 16 per cent to 25 per cent. This compared with the Asian average of 8 per cent and global average of 11 per cent.

It would be great to hear from anyone that has been localized or has an opinion on the impact this is having on expats, especially given the volatile nature of equity markets over the course of the last year.

ExpatExchange has been running a new report that examines Culture Shock, one of the topics that all expats will become familiar with to some degree. Please add your Expat Culture Shock Report, too!

Did you “commit” any embarrassing or humorous cultural blunders? If you did and you’d like to share them, please do tell!

I had very good handlers so I did not commit any big mistakes. But I saw others do so. One example came when we went out to dinner with a large group of friends and family. The man who invited us, American, wanted to split the bill at the end of the night. This is NEVER done in China. I told him this but he didn’t listen. He insisted that we calculate the bill at the table and came up with what he thought everyone should put in. From that day on he was branded a cheapskate and shunned by almost everyone. The word spreads quickly in China and in a few days all of the extended families and friends turned a cold shoulder to him in every way. In China the one who invites, or even suggests, going to a restaurant pays the entire bill, the wives of girlfriends will scrutinize it for any possible errors. It should be paid with no fanfare once the women OK the amount.

Separately, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are the leading destinations for expatriates in the Gulf Cooperation Council, according to GulfTalent.com, a recruiting firm that conducted the recent survey.

According to the article on Gulf-Times.com, Qatar is seeing the benefit due to its natural gas industry. The article points out that it’s deposits are the third largest in the world. Massive spending on infrastructure is cited as a key factor in Saudi Arabia.

Americans living abroad can expect to feel the scrutiny of the IRS more than they have in the past. As this article from PRweb via Yahoo News points out, the deadline for expats is June 15th.

This quote provides the reasoning for this additional focus on expats:

“There is a hole of about USD 400 billion in the current US budget,””said David McKeegan, founder of Greenback Tax Services. “The Obama administration thinks that offshore tax abuse costs the US Treasury as much as USD 100 billion each year, and the President has authorized an additional USD 128 million for the 2010 IRS budget. Part of this money will be spent on 800 new IRS agents to try to track down who is filing and paying their taxes from abroad and who is not.”

And, separately, this CNN.com article volcano in Iceland threatens the European economy, which is obviously already under strain. Expats in Europe should be paying attention to how this might affect them.

An increasing number of U.S. citizens and green card holders overseas are taking the extreme step of renouncing their American citizenship due to tax hikes, among other reasons.

An Ohio-born entrepreneur, now based in Switzerland, told Dow Jones he is considering turning in his U.S. passport. Mounting U.S. tax and reporting requirements are making potential business partners hesitate to do business with him, he said.

“I still do dearly love the U.S., and renouncing my citizenship is not something I take lightly. But more and more it is seeming like being part of a dysfunctional family,” said the businessman, who asked that his name not be used for fear of retribution.

Last month, the Treasury Department announced more rigorous requirements for Americans living abroad to report information on foreign bank accounts. The reporting requirement has been in place for years, but only in the most recent couple of years has the IRS gotten tough about enforcing penalties.

The information return must be filed by any U.S. citizen or resident whose balance in all foreign accounts combined exceeds $10,000 at any time during the year. Stiff penalties, up to 50% of the annual account balance, punish failure to file.

It will be interesting to see what kind of comments we get on this topic. While expats often voice concerns about the direction of the U.S., renouncing their citizenship is not something we read about often on ExpatExchange.com. Leaving the U.S. to live due to political objections is something we’ve read about on our forums in the Clinton, Bush and now Obama administrations. This seems to be something altogether different.