I am from the UK and am a fulltime IM'er.

Like the majority here i get paid mostly in US Dollars. How do i do the currency conversion in my tax return? If i got paid for example $2,500 in March via paypal, do i find the exchange rate on THAT particular day, or do i total up the dollar amount for that month and then work out the UK Pound amount for that month, or do i just do it all in one big go at the end?

I'm really confused about this, thanks to anyone who can help me out.

You are supposed to use the calcualtion on the day the money actually arrives to you. Several of the forex compnaies have history graphs to show what the exchange rate was on a certain day so you can check back..but in my experience if you are using a figure thats around the right mark then they wont actually query the exchange rate you used on the day.

I am not 100% sure but I personally do it for the day, using rates from oanda.com (you can get an entire table of rates for the year, and do a vlookup in Excel).

Every method has its own faults but this is the most accurate IMO. The most I could be out by is a few quid or so, something that tax man are not going to give a shit about.

Where are you in UK? You should come to the London meet!

I have been doing this for years now and I take the rate when I cash the cheques or if I still have dollars when doing my return I take the rate at that time.

Hope this helps,

Does paypal not convert it to £ for you. If so use the actual £ you got from paypal. If not then you have to use the official daily rate which you can google.

just go setup a bank account in montevideo, they have real secrecy laws there.

use a debit card to get money and tell the crown that your unemployed to get your tax dollars back via welfare vis a vis the immigrant takes it all.

Free Emma West!!