Welcome to Tax Bytes for Expats, the top tax tips you want to know as an expat. The podcast is here to help answer the common queries and concerns expats have when moving to or from Ireland.

Complex taxes explained simply. We'll focus on the Irish and international tax issues to be aware of to ensure you save time, money and stress.

Hi everyone, welcome to this episode of Tax Bytes for Expats. Today we are going to speak with Jenny Stein.

Jenny is a client of ours and a very interesting character who has explained lots to me about what it's like to be an expat in Ireland.

We have a previous episode on this series where we interviewed some clients of ours who had made the move to Ireland and it was very popular.

So we were really keen when Jenny offered to join us because she's going to share her experience of what it was like to move to Ireland,

the issues she's encountered and all the little tips and tricks that you probably want to know if you're in the middle of planning a move here. So Jenny, thank you so much for giving us some of your time.

I really appreciate it. It's great to have you on to speak with us.

Same, it's great to be here.

So tell us a little bit about yourself. Your story is really interesting. Yourself and Tom, we were just talking before we started to record. You have interesting backgrounds, I suppose, from a career perspective in terms of where you've lived.

Give us a brief rundown of your story and what brought you to Ireland.

I suppose what brought us to Ireland was my husband's work. He works in film sound. But to back up even further, my work was industrial design.

So in the winter of 1992, we basically, I moved to Milan, Italy. We went to Milan, Italy, and I got a job there.

And because I was working in Italy, then Tom was working on jobs with Tornatore down at Cinecittà in Rome. But it all sort of circles back on itself. It's like this big ball of yarn.

Previous to me working as an industrial designer, I'd actually worked in film editing and film sound. And so I'd worked with someone named Doug Murray.

He had come over to help a small studio get going with post-production sound down in Bray at Artmore Studios. Yes. His wife is Irish. And I'd worked with Douglas before back in San Francisco.

Anyhow, this company was basically trying to get a toehold in post-production sound by offering an American-style mix.

Because companies were, you know, film productions, studios were coming over and shooting things like Harry Potter and stuff. Mixing it in England, not getting the mix they want and going back to America to get a proper mix.

So they basically felt with Tom, who had won an Oscar for Touching. And another one for Terminator 2, that he would be able to offer an American-style mix. But actually backing up a little bit.

They had tried a bunch of different people to come over for a project. And somehow when Tom came, he was that perfect person. And so they offered him a full-time job.

So if initially we were going back and forth between Milan and San Francisco, we were now going back and forth between Milan, Ireland and San Francisco. And it became too much. So we actually sold our apartment.

We sold our apartment in San Francisco and weren't there for a few years. And we're just back and forth between Milan and Ireland.

And then at a certain point, when I left, officially left Italy 10 years ago, we resumed going back and forth between San Francisco and Dublin. And now we're both 70, 69, 71.

We have just sold our place in San Francisco and are now permanently here in Ireland. So that's a very non-linear, terrible story to describe who we are. No, it's not.

Any story where you just drop the word Oscar into it, Oscar nominated winner, it's not linear. It's pretty amazing. Okay. I have lots of questions.

I suppose, you know, what's interesting is for Irish people, some of whom may be listening to this podcast, you said Milan, you said San Francisco, and then you say Britain. Why Ireland?

Because, you know, I know there was work, but the work maybe was not there anymore because you guys are retired. What was it that drew you to Ireland when you had the options of other, obviously, places you could live?

Well, we did and we didn't. By the time we started looking for property, we would have been what I call on the road for 12 years.

And we were sort of, you know, bungee courting back and forth between San Francisco and Milan and then now Dublin. We had this desire to just have a little corner of the earth we could call our own.

And so, and at the time we were living in Dalky in this wonderful two-story apartment above the optician in Dalky. And we started looking.

And I drew a radius around, you know, from Bray. And I should have drawn it just a little bit larger than I did because we might have ended up in Animo.

But anyhow, that's how we came to end up in Roundwood. We found this place. It took us nine months to get all the dots connected so that we could buy it. And that was in 2005.

And then shortly after the economy collapsed, the place was worth half as much. It didn't make sense to sell it. So we just, we kept going.

And then we started fixing up old buildings. There's a 200-year-old stone cottage and a stone barn and other things. And we just slowly, starting in 2009, started fixing things up.

And by then the, what's the motorway called? The Ring Road, the M50.

By then that was built, which was fantastic because it meant that we could get to the airport easily enough. And even if.

If my heart would love to have been out in the West, I think in the end, this place where we ended up was the best place. We worked with a couple of brothers who are builders and that made it possible.

Plus also the ease of going back and forth. So I actually kind of think of it that Ireland somehow took us into its embrace. Like Ireland would have it.

And we're happy to be had by Ireland. If that is a better way to say it. But like of all the places in all the world. How did we end up here? It's just by circumstance, but it fits, you know.

You know, it's funny because we have a lot of clients in the situation.

So maybe like, you know, they're about to move to Ireland and the things that we hear regularly are, you know, it's English speaking. It's not far from Europe, but it's equally not that far from the States.

You know, it's got access to job markets. You know, it's relatively easy to move here depending on your visa situation. And I kind of hear that maybe for you. It was more just something that happened as opposed to what was planned.

In terms of the people who are listening to this today, who maybe are making the move. I know you provided some brilliant feedback for us on the recent e-book that we designed about moving to Ireland.

What I'm hoping you can kind of share with us is, you know, if you could turn back the clock and you were moving here or you were sitting with a friend who's planning a move to Ireland, somebody in your situation, maybe in retirement or approaching retirement.

What tips would you give them? And particularly if we can distill three or four, that would be really useful for the people who've decided to listen today.

Well, I would say the main thing that I tell people, and that would be irregardless of why they're moving here, is to understand that none of it is rocket science.

That every single thing you have to do, whether it's opening a bank account or getting a PPS number, those are all things that whoever I'm speaking to, I said, those are all the things that you've done from when you were a child opening a savings account.

You know, getting yourself. A security number. The only difference is you didn't do them all at once. It's spread out. And it's, but when you start to do it, when you have to do it all at once and they're all intertwined, it can feel overwhelming.

But honestly, it's just, it's not, it's not different.

Did you find the Irish systems more bureaucratic, frustrating, perhaps?

I don't know how I expect the system in my land to be, but like from a US perspective, do you see big differences between how governments administrated and administered in Ireland compared to the US?

Well, yeah. But I would. You slid into Italy for a little while.

Italy was the most bureaucratic, but it was also the most humane in the sense that if you were trying to do something and the answer was no, like I was trying to renew my papers at one point.

The answer was, well, here's an appointment for three months from now. And I was actually trying to renew my papers because I had goods coming in that would sit in Naples and incur a storage fee.

And it was Christmas, two days before Christmas, my parents were here. It was just insane. And in my limited Italian, I basically kept asking, and the person behind the counter basically said, oh, here, go talk to this person.

I talked to the next person, explained everything. And then they said, oh, well, here, go talk to this person. And that person said, okay, fine. We'll renew it today. So that sort of thing is very particularly Italian.

We haven't bumped into nearly as much of that here in Ireland, in part because I'm now an Italian citizen. Right. And along the way, Tom. I became an Irish citizen.

But I do remember early days, which don't exist anymore, where we were at 5 a.m. in the morning in long lines of people to renew papers.

And this actually happened, where three people before us, they said, okay, we're only taking 100 people today, and we'll see you guys tomorrow.

And so we came back tomorrow and went through the whole process. Although, in fairness, that first day, I think we started at 8 a.m., and the next day we came back at 5 a.m. And now they've got a whole centre in Dublin, and they've got, you know, the Wicklow.

We also would go to the Wicklow Guard. And it's quite easy and organised and logical and painless.

Yeah, I think you're right there. I mean, what we encountered, I suppose, when we came back from Australia was that a lot of the government systems had become, you know, online-based. When we were away, we were gone for eight years.

So PPS numbers can be applied for online. You can apply for other government benefits. You can apply for other benefits and services online. So, yeah, there's probably been a shift in the last five or ten years towards that.

In terms of day-to-day life in Ireland, one of the things I was looking back on that struck me was that you guys have really tried to, like, inculcate yourself into, like, Irish culture.

In one of your emails, you mentioned that you guys have learned Irish. That blew me away, because most Irish people, we learn it for, like, 12 years, and we struggle. It's terrible. It's a tragedy. But we struggle. And you probably have more Irish than I do.

What was it? What was that like? We're here. We want to be part of it. This is what we're going to do. What drove that decision to learn a really hard language?

Well, it was just another one of those things that sort of comes into your field of vision. You say yes. So what we had, this was before COVID started.

We had made a reservation out on Inishmain Island for a week for my birthday. And the reason it took so long was basically you really had to do it well in advance. So it was a very delayed birthday celebration.

And it happened to fall in the midst of COVID, which was perfect, because to be out there and be isolated and everyone's doing COVID measures was perfect and easy.

And it was nice to break away in the middle of, you know, of COVID. While we were there, we were at the Inishmain Knitting Company and just chatting with someone who was Irish.

I don't know how we got onto the subject of language and words, but we did. And she basically, she said, oh, you should learn Irish and you can go on Duolingo. And you can also join, you know, she mentioned a few sources.

And so literally the next day we joined up and I've now been on Duolingo three years. So it's, I don't necessarily recommend it as the sole way of learning. There's so many different ways of learning.

And I can't speak Irish to save my life, although I'm getting better. You really need to be able to use it. But I've come across a few sources, like the Trail Blazery. They do a hedge school, the Skoliskarta.

And that is a way to. Bring Irish alive and make it fun and interesting. And also Irish with Molly, who offers an online course and she does an Instagram feed every

day. And she is absolutely brilliant at making the language interesting and lively and relatable. And so honestly, once I started, I thought, why didn't I think of learning Irish sooner?

Because the very first thing I did in moving to Italy, even before I moved to Italy, was to learn the language. But it just never occurred to me.

It is impenetrable, but it is so rewarding to understand when people say, oh, the weather is really dirty. That comes from Irish. It's not from English.

You know, like if it's a really bad day.

I don't. To me, it's such a lovely thing to see somebody do when they come to Ireland is to try and learn the language, because the reality is, on a day to day basis, you don't need it to function. You do it by choice.

And it's obviously a sign that yourself and Tom have kind of said, you know, we're here now. This is where we are. And we are identifying with the culture locally. Do you find it difficult, kind of assimilating?

I mean, you guys have been here for many years, but what was it like trying to make friends when you come and you lived elsewhere? You obviously had careers, you were busy. But, you know, maybe you land in Roundwood, which is not a massive place, really.

Was it easy to kind of make friends and become part of the community?

I would give you a qualified answer, which is, I don't know if it's easy to make friends because of the language. I haven't really made what I would call true friends, but it was easy, very easy to be

integrated into the neighborhood in which we moved, which was somewhat rural. In fact, the very first day when we came with the keys, suddenly everyone came out of the woodwork and introduced themselves.

And yeah, I would say it's very easy to be here in Ireland, especially in rural Ireland. But I wouldn't say we've actually tried to integrate ourselves into Irish culture per se.

I would say we've actually tried to integrate ourselves into Irish culture per se, but I haven't said that for the last eight years. I've been part of a beekeeping group here in Ireland.

So that certainly keeps me connected with an aspect of the community.

And that's such a good way. Like, you know, I think when you move to a new country, you kind of have this idea in your head that maybe you'll just bump into people and you'll become friends. And I think the reality is anytime you move to any country, it's when you kind of get

involved in something like that. You know, go to a group. Or go to a community event that you do end up meeting people with similar interests. And that's when friendships can kind of form.

But I suppose it's difficult when you're not local and you're in a rural community. Everybody maybe knows each other because they grew up together and you're potentially not

from the, not an outsider, but you're not, you know, you don't know the area initially. You're new.

Yeah. No, I would, I would absolutely encourage anyone to join any sort of group because it's that sort of repeated contact that pulls you into the community.

Do you find, is there a big U.S. expat community living in Ireland? Is that something that you see active?

That's a very interesting question because I am not at all involved in that. I know very few Americans.

There's one American at the Roundwood stores here in Roundwood where I go and do my shopping, my food shopping. Whereas in Italy, I was extreme. I was very aware of there was a professional women's.

Association and other expat groups that were primarily UK and American. And I, I'm not aware of that here, although I'm sure it exists, but I don't, I don't avail

of it the way I did initially when I moved to Italy. Yeah.

It's funny, isn't it? The longer you're somewhere, the less you need those things. I think to some extent you had mentioned it's valid in your emails to me that, you know,

you had comments around bringing pets to Ireland, you know, bringing goods. All the things that, you know, retirees can benefit from. Kind of to come back to what we said at the start, any other tips or insight to give people

along that practical line of, you know, don't worry about registering for things you need to do. What is it? What was it about moving to Ireland or what distillation would you have of the wisdom, let's say, of somebody who's been living here and who's moved many times?

That's difficult because you will always bump into something that looks like an obstacle and then somehow you end up working your way.

For example, the last, we've shipped things overseas four times now. And the last time was our household goods from San Francisco.

So you'd think that it would have been easy, household goods, personal items. But then we came across this one category, which was tools. And we actually were sending over woodworking tools. And we thought, oh, Jesus.

But in the end, it was fine. And we also, because we got caught in COVID, we had become resident here. I would say the one thing.

The other thing is to be aware that you have a certain leeway to bring goods in that's based on the date when you have actually flown over here and established your residency.

You can't, it's not an open date that can be left forever. It's typically within a year, let's say. And so because we got stuck here with COVID and couldn't fly back and sell the house,

it was two years had lapsed. And so we ended up writing a letter explaining that. And it was fine. I think definitely during COVID.

There was leniency on the tax front. It was limited. But just to come back to your point with the tools, what was the out there? Because I had a client contact with you the other day, actually, who had issues bringing tools into the country.

I think customs were trying to claim that he was bringing them in for work purposes. And he's just a hobby he has is to use his tools in his shed. So what was the out there for you? Obviously, they were trying to levy customs because of the tools you had.

Well, it was one of those things that was listed, but they never came at us. They never queried us. About it. So we slid through.

Okay.

I don't know how.

Let's not ask. But so it is done. Exactly.

But the one thing I would say that could be addressed that maybe hasn't been is if people are coming over to be here for two or three years and then planning to go back, they end

up in a very different, somewhat different situation, I believe, whereby they you can post a bond on the things you bring over and say, I will take them away. I will take them with me when I leave Ireland and then you get your bond back.

Okay. And it's revenue's way of making sure you don't bring things over and sell them. Yeah.

And I think, you know, sometimes when we get queries from clients, we're not experts in that space. There's relocation providers and customs brokers.

And, you know, the advice we generally give people is it's worth sometimes paying the fee to get them to help you navigate it because they can help you at the customs checkpoints. They can help you with paperwork. Yeah.

We had friends in Australia who were importing their personal effects from Ireland to Australia and they inadvertently put some Irish whiskey in the boxes and their goods were impounded

for weeks by the Australian customs forces because obviously there needs to be excise

pays on that. And it's just a completely innocent, let's just pack up our living room. Oh, there's a few bottles of Irish whiskey. Let's put them in. So something like that, where you've inadvertently not thought of, oh, sugar, what about that? Yeah.

It meant they didn't have their personal goods for weeks and weeks. It was a nightmare for them. I think it's an area that's definitely worth treading carefully if you're inexperienced.

Yes. And I would agree with you that having a broker aim someone to actually work some of those wrinkles out before you actually get to them is a good idea because Ireland is similar.

It's this, you know, alcohol is taxed and you could easily pack up a case of your favorite wines that you've been holding on to when you come over. You know, it's a very innocent mistake.

Yeah, very much so.

So we brought over two cats from San Francisco to Milan and we got all the papers and got the rabies shots and we checked with the airline and we went to the airline.

I was, Tom was working and I was going to fly with the two cats and two separate, whatever they're called, carriers, cat carriers. And we get to the airport and they said, oh, I'm sorry, you can't take those cats today.

And so I don't know what the reasoning was. Like there's someone who's allergic or some other cat or who knows what they didn't have room. And so we went home.

Tom actually bought a ticket and came with me the next day. We moved my flight around and we actually went and we went through Switzerland and then

to Milan and I had the papers and I walked through waving them to like to see who would actually check them. And it didn't matter after I'd gone through all of that fuss.

So then the cats were like, oh, let's bring them to Ireland from Milan. And so I went through a similar thing where we got little microchips embedded under their skin and rabies shots.

And I'm not sure at the time if I would have had to have quarantined them because it was UK rules. I don't remember. And the cat was 17 and didn't make it. So I don't actually know the end of that story.

But I do know that Ireland and the UK are a little bit, have different rules than other countries. And it's worth looking into. Yeah. I'm sorry. We had a cat in Australia.

We didn't bring him back because for the reason, you know, the trauma of transporting them all that way and the cost. But yeah, they're little members of your family and it's definitely something to plan for

in advance because, yeah, we do have experts on those. Again, you're right. There's rules here around where they can come from and what needs to happen.

What surprised you about Ireland? You've been here for time now. What is it that Jenny of 20 years ago wouldn't have realised about life in Ireland? I know she's lived here. This is just like, yeah, I didn't realise it would be.

I think the thing that surprised me the most is actually the thing that still surprised that surprised me 20 years ago.

And that is I very early on came to see Ireland and Italy as sister brother countries. They're both Catholic. They're both agriculturally based.

One is very much physical and surfaces and patina and construction. It's Italy and design and the physical, all of that physicality.

And Ireland is completely the opposite. It's a celebration of word and music and storytelling and all the non-physical things that can't be controlled.

So they couldn't be controlled by the British, for example. They're the things that you are free always to express.

And I think that's what I love about learning Irish now is that the language is so poetic and so spiritual and so amazing. And so I'm actually...

I'm rediscovering that thing that I first felt about Ireland, which is that it's in all of those spoken word, music, storytelling is this incredible richness.

That's really... That's a lovely thing to bring out. And I think, to be honest, as an Irish person who lived overseas, that's probably one of

the things I missed because in Australia, I didn't feel that it had its positives. But everyone loves their home. But Ireland... I think it's a special place in that sense. It's warm. It's rich.

And as a population, we enjoy all those things, that we have a lovely heritage, you know, the lands of saints and scholars. Okay, that's really interesting.

Can I add one more thing? So this is the next answer, which is the thing that I absolutely love about Ireland and why I'm so glad that we're here and that the Irish will have us is that it's a small country

and it's nimble, which means that when something happens in the Ukraine, they immediately... The government... Immediately says, here, come, we'll give you health cards, we'll find you a place to live.

There's no long, drawn-out discussion and debating back and forth as there would be in America, which is a great country. It's a very large country, but it's a very different way of governing.

So I am very, very proud to be here in Ireland.

I have to say, it's a great country. What do you miss about the States?

It's funny. In the early days, it used to be standing on a street corner eating a hot dog, and we would do that. Whenever we were back.

Nowadays, I would say I miss the most wonderful farmers markets that you get, especially in California, but even in Massachusetts, where you have hundreds of farmers gathered selling

all sorts of vegetables, meats, fruits, products. I miss that spirit. I miss that wonderful gathering of people and food.

Wow. Yeah. Jenny, it's been so lovely to talk to you and I think even just learn a little bit more. I think it's been so wonderful to talk to you and I think even just learn a little bit more about the why and the how and what keeps you here. So many people that we talk to, we have them with tax problems.

We're not experts in, I suppose, helping people move their lives from one part of the world to the other. But people are really like to hear these stories because anybody planning to move, they have questions about what they should do, what's going to happen.

None of us can predict that, but it's always nice to hear when someone's come before you. So thank you very much for sharing your experience with us. Your story is really interesting. I've listened to you all day. I'm really excited to be honest.

And yeah, you never know, we might have to have you on again for round two.

Might have to. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you very much.

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