10 Years in London

It's interesting how things change when you're not looking. Last time I was in Sweden was in 2018, and it was easy to see the obvious changes, like buildings, and road changes. The big road to Kista was way different, as was Norrtull. And Odenplan is way more connected with its new commuter trains.

But there are less visible changes too, that make it seem less like home and more foreign. A new way to pay for public transport, with weird nonintuitive terms that I'm not used to. Imagine being asked "do you have a travel purse? (reskassa)". Huh? "The standard is 6, do you want that?" Standard what? 6 what? Because I didn't understand the guy actually thought I didn't speak Swedish (even though I'd spoken in complete sentences already).

So I feel like a bit of a foreigner.

It doesn't help that my personal ID number is no longer in the public register (it's still valid, just not in the public version of the register, SPAR), so companies call it "invalid". And my bank (SEB) said they will no longer be able to let me buy investments within their platform. I don't have to sell what I have, but I can't trade or buy anymore.

Some online stores don't accept that my Swish phone number is a UK one (but it does work, I've sent and received money with it), and paying with Bank ID doesn't work if my personal ID number is "invalid".

Several companies where I'm an existing customer don't support me changing my mailing/billing address in their system, so I have to contact support for them to manually change it. At least Binero, SEB, and Loopia. Also Skatteverket requires a letter to be sent. That's right, not everything is digital in Sweden. I think Avanza even needed a "proof of address" such as bank statement. I'd never heard of that in Sweden before.

Avanza will let me continue even after the UK leaves the EU fully (but would not let me create a new account if I didn't already have it), so that's good, at least.

A different kind of nanny state

I've noticed a pattern in how Sweden and UK handle differences in income differently.

Sweden has income tax, and that's pretty much it. There's four levels:

• Anything less than X is tax free
• Above that, anything less than Y is taxed at (about) 30%
• Above that, anything less than Z is taxed at (about) 50%
• Above that it's all taxed at (about) 55%

(details not important for these purposes)

Simple, right? I've made a spreadsheet that manages to compare UK to Sweden taxes, and after the complication of National Insurance (NI) tax being separated from income tax, and regressive, it's pretty simple.

The UK has very similar structure (though with lower percentages), but doesn't stop there. Unlike Sweden there are other limits where the UK takes away tax breaks and benefits as income increases. This becomes de facto progressive taxes (don't read me wrong, I'm not against progressive taxes), but added in a way that makes it very hard to get a real number for "how much more will I get in pocket if my income increases by X?" or "What is my net tax percentage at income X?".

Examples:

• At an undefined low income you can queue for council housing (I don't know much about this)
• At an undefined low income you can get a discount on your council tax (Sweden doesn't have council tax at all)
• If you earn more than £45k then any capital gains is taxed at 20% instead of 10% (with complicated formula to not make in-pocket go backwards)
• If either parent of a child earns more than £50k the child benefits start going away, to be completely gone at £60k. This is taken back as income tax.
• Between £100k and £120k the tax-free allowance disappears
• That's £11k * 40% = £4'400
• Between £150k and £210k the annual pension allowance decreases from £40k to £10k
• This is a tax increase of £30k * 47% = £14'100

Sweden has a bunch of ceilings, but things aren't taken away at higher incomes.

So which is better? I don't know. UK has the drawback that it's harder to get a clear answer (and you only find out about new rules when your salary increases to that limit), so tax system transparency is worse, and doing your taxes is harder.

Sweden has the drawback that e.g. there's no reason to give child benefits to someone earning a million SEK per year.

Bottom line though is that it's way harder than I expected to compare cost of living, or even tax rates, between countries. Maybe I was being naive.

Five years in London

As of today I've lived in London for five years. It seems like a good time for some kind of retrospective.

I've gone back to Sweden about once a year. I appreciate the architecture of Stockholm much more now. I feel like a foreigner (I guess it helps that in Sweden I stay in someone's spare bedroom and don't have my own place). I say silly things in Swedish (I've been Dolphed).

I appreciate speaking two languages fluently, in that some expressions that come naturally in one language are much harder to express in others. And language does steer thoughts, to some degree.

Take "övervakning" (surveillance) as an example. In English it sounds like "survey", but in Swedish it's closer to "over watching" (well, not really, but the word "over" is part of it). As in "watching from above". A co-worker found a sign in German that said "videoüberwachung" funny, because to him it sounded like it meant "videos are being super-watched", which did not occur to me as a Swedish and partial German-speaker.

Taxes. OMG Taxes. I had to do a self-assessment this year, which means I couldn't just squint at what HMRC sent me and go "uh... yeah that sounds about right" and do nothing. I had to actually run the numbers myself this year. So I got an accountant. The accountant was expensive. The back was taxes three times as expensive. But at least I've moved my tax liability for my savings and investments in Sweden to instead be in the UK. I am not a tax adviser, and I barely understand the annotated filled-in tax form my accountant gave me, but this appears to be beneficial to me.

What's still different about London:

• No mobile coverage on the tube. This is still crazy.
• Bank websites are still shockingly stuck in the past.
• I don't feel like I've fully internalized the value of the British pound. It doesn't help that all the prices are different here (food is cheaper, rent much more expensive) and that I'm making much more money here than I did in Sweden.
• Weekly scam phone calls: PPI protection and "We've been told you had an accident in the last few months, is that right?"
• Ok, so PPI protection is not a scam, but they won't stop calling even if you tell them "I was not in the country when this settlement happened. This does not apply to me. Please take me off your list."
• If you get the "accident" one, just ask "what address or name do you have on file for this accident?". They will hang up on you if you ask that.

What's different about Sweden:

• Why does a country of only ~10M people have their own language?
• I miss snow. Don't let the locals fool you, they don't really have winter and don't actually get any snow.
• "What do they know of England, who only England know" applies to Sweden too.
• Jantelagen is stupid.

My plans now:

• Get Permanent Residence Card. You can get this after 5 years and holding it for a year is a prerequisite for applying for citizenship. (if you are non-EU citizen you instead apply for Indefinite Leave to Stay (ILS).
• Continuing to live and work here.

The most untranslatable Swedish word

No, it's not "lagom".

It's "tjuvträna".

It's harder to explain in the UK than Cheeky Nandos is to explain to an American.

USD bank account

I have some stock priced in USD that incur a fixed currency conversion fee per transaction, and a currency conversion fee. If a stock is priced at $500 with a $25 fixed fee plus 1.6% conversion fee it's not really a good idea to sell one stock at a time, and even then there's the conversion fee.

So I called HSBC UK and asked them if I could open a USD account. Turns out they've discontinued that service in the UK, but that perhaps I could open a USD account with them in the US. Fine, doesn't matter for me where the account is, I guess.

Nope, can't do that, the next person said. I don't work in the US, so that's out.

Next they offered to open a USD offshore account with HSBC expat. We could walk through the application, and that will take about 40 minutes where they'll ask me about my income, my monthly expenses, etc.. I'll also have to come in to a branch office and show passport, UK driving license, and recent bank statement.

That makes some amount of sense... if I weren't already an HSBC customer, and they didn't already have all this on file for me already, and if I hadn't come in just last week to have them scan my driving license in addition to them already having my passport on file. But I am, and they do, and I did, and they do.

Ah, but HSBC is not the same as HSBC Expat.

Can't you copy-paste that info with my consent? -- No

Ugh. Can I do this online? Yes, I can print the form, fill it in, and come in with it and all my documents.

So the bank statement, I will get a bank statement from HSBC and then immediately hand it back to HSBC? -- Yes

Fine. HSBC is stupid, but fine.

Filling in the form I have to check a box saying I'm aware of IRS FATCA and that it either doesn't apply to me or that I've done the right things and have the right paperwork if it does. Uh... this could make my tax return much more complicated.

So I call my Swedish bank, SEB. Yeah, sure, it'll cost 300 SEK. They'll send me a thing I need to sign and then I'm all set.

Sounds painless. To be continued...

My new favourite UK hobby

My new favourite UK hobby is filling out forms in proper ISO 8601 format, and watching them struggle to understand it. (honestly people, 2014-12-24, it's not that hard!)

I feel a bit like Václav Havel when I do this.

References:

• ISO 8601 on Wikipedia
• xkcd.com/1179/

(there, a blog post done in 2014)

The broadband market in the UK is retarded

Coming from Sweden I may be biased. But how about getting the information to the customer right?

Virgin Media

They will tell you if they can give you internet, but if they say they can't provide TV you have to explicitly ask them if it's ADSL they're offering. They won't tell you, and it's not in the product information.

I ask them if ADSL is the only internet this house can get, even from other providers. They say yes.

Sky

You're expected to know that TV services require a dish. And as for "Sky Fibre Unlimited", oh dear lord. It doesn't require a dish, but they sent us information that our fibre box must be connected to a phone line that can make outgoing and incoming calls. WTF? I called them and they tell me it's optional (I'm not interested in having a land line). Fine.

The send a letter saying they've scheduled the install for 28th of Jan. Then we get another letter saying they've rescheduled the install to the day we preferred, the 13th of Jan. Turns out that was just the TV installer, not Internet.

When the TV installer comes over he says that he's sure "Sky Fibre Internet" is ADSL, and it's called "Fibre" because it uses BTs fibre backbone. When I object that Google uses fibre, that doesn't mean you can call something fibre just because it can access Google he just shrugs. Also ADSL doesn't do the 38 or 76Mbps that they sell.

So I call Sky. No, they assure me, it's a fibre cable coming in to the house. I ask "so in my house there will be a box that takes fibre in one end, and normal network cable in the other?". They say yes.

So Virgin can only offer ADSL for our place, and Sky can't provide TV. And both are retarded liars.

BT

Girlfriend calls BT to see if they can offer Internet & TV (without dish). They can. They offer the same fibre, that can give us speeds similar to what Sky offers. They say it's the same technology as Sky would offer, since it's actually BT that'll own the thing either way. Great. So it's fibre with 60-odd Mbps down? Yes, depending on the distance to the house. Wait.... wait what? No, fibre doesn't work that way. I ask "is it actually a fibre cable coming in to the house?". Yes, and it connects to the fibre modem. "This fibre modem has fibre coming in one side, and normal network cable in the other?". Uhm, no, she says. It's copper to the box down the street.

GAAAAAH!

So it seems we're getting FTTC, with some unknown copper handoff technology. (63.5/20 is not exactly what you'd call an even number).


PS:
At the previous place we had Virgin Media cable. It was actually quite good in terms of speed and services. It did have some packet loss problems though.