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Income from abroad exchange rates
Clients family live here. They are all British. He works away for a few months at a time in Libya. Earns 4000 Libyan dinar a month. Hb are using Google exchange rate. He says he gets 5 times less than that as there is no money in the Libyan banks and so have to use agencies who take a cut and give awful exchange rates. Hb say they can’t take this into account.
do they say why they can’t take this into account?
the situation in libya is well known, no central government, lots of militias, etc etc etc
also, for interest, i went on to xe.com to check the exchange rate; the strap under the conversion specifically says that the rate stated is NOT available to “consumer clients”, which your man would be.
do they say why they can’t take this into account?
the situation in libya is well known, no central government, lots of militias, etc etc etc
they just said they can only allow certain deductions such as tax, ni, and pension. they appreciate he has to use agencies that profit from the instability in the country leaving him with less than his earnings but the regulations do not permit them to make a deduction for this expense. the current situation is that 1 dinar equals £0.58 so they use that rate.
this works out that he earns £1901 as he gets 3267 dinar. he said he actually got £1 = 4.9 dinar so got £578
i don’t know much about banks in libya
as much as this rule seems unfair, is there anything the council can do about it.
thanks again
Schedule 4 to the HB regs lists sums to be disregarded, which includes “any banking charge or commission payable in converting that payment into Sterling.”
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2006/213/schedule/4/paragraph/14/made
Schedule 4 to the HB regs lists sums to be disregarded, which includes “any banking charge or commission payable in converting that payment into Sterling.”
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2006/213/schedule/4/paragraph/14/made
thank you - i will that argument forward - do you think they will say its not an official banking charge as its some agency (or its not actually a charge, just a bad exchange rate). thanks
Schedule 4 to the HB regs lists sums to be disregarded, which includes “any banking charge or commission payable in converting that payment into Sterling.”
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2006/213/schedule/4/paragraph/14/made
thank you - i will that argument forward - do you think they will say its not an official banking charge as its some agency (or its not actually a charge, just a bad exchange rate). thanks
Sorry, I don’t know, I was just throwing it out there. The previous para in the Schedule also says that earnings payable in countries which prohibit transfer of funds to the UK should also be fully disregarded (e.g. you can’t legally move money out of the Philippines above a certain small threshold, as I recall). Might be worth trying to find out if Libya is such a state.
I would stress the words ANY and CHARGE or COMMISSION as used in Sch 4. In other words, the provisions are to be interpreted widely.
If the LA insist on taking a narrow approach, you have good grounds to appeal.
Shouldn’t they just make an appropriate calculation of what the earnings actually are once they’ve been converted? It ought to be reasonably easy to demonstrate that their googled rate is not applicable for all the reasons stated. They should therefore take a rate that is appropriate.
The equivalent IS reg is Sch 9 para 24, which also refers to “any banking charge or commission”. The commentary suggests that the interpretation of how this provision works made in CIS 627/1995 is probably wrong, and refers us to the DMG at 28415. The numbered points in the DMG imply that the word “banking” modifies only the word immediately following it, i.e. “commission” does not have to be “commission charged by a bank”.
28415 The DM should fully disregard any
1. bank charges or
2. commission
paid when income paid in foreign currency is converted to sterling1.1 JSA Regs, Sch 7, para 25; IS (Gen) Regs, Sch 9, para 24
(The commentary also notes that the reg could have been worded more clearly)