Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2017 5:08am
I can't help much without details of your anticipated income, but I'd make the point that once resident here then you are legally obliged to pay tax on all your income in Spain, which involves getting residencia, registering with the Spanish tax authorities, then submitting the paperwork to get out of the UK tax system. Once that's done, Inland Revenue will issue a tax code NT, no tax, which means you won't pay tax in the UK. The exception is someone who had worked for the UK government - civil servant, armed forces etc. This income would be taxed in the UK but taken into consideration when calculating the tax due in Spain.
As a generalisation, we find tax in Spain is higher than that in the UK. However, this is more than offset by the cost of living being much less. Our council tax is ten percent of what it would be in the UK. Utility costs are similar, but of course you won't have massive heating bills! Food, alcohol and tobacco are cheaper, in some cases much cheaper.
Your husband will move straight onto the Spanish health system, with free prescriptions, but you'll have to take out private health insurance or pay a monthly fee to join the state system. I don't know if it still happens, but anyone under retirement age could originally get two years free cover by riding on the back of their partner's entitlement. You'd have to talk to DWP at Newcastle to clarify this.
One word of caution. Lots of people don't register and pay tax in Spain, which is illegal, but they get away with it. However, Spanish tax authorities can look at your records on the Inland Revenue computer, and if they catch you out they can get you for four years back tax plus a considerable fine.
And one final word of caution - be careful who you get to do your tax returns. I've studied the taxation system and do tax returns for ourselves and for several friends. Every tax return done by Spanish fiscals or lawyers for friends, before I started doing them, had errors in them, usually resulting in paying more tax than necessary.
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