Last Updated: 4 May 1998
Why does this page exist?
I'm hoping to move to America in the next few months, so I've been looking for information the Net that might be useful. What there is seems to be scattered pretty widely (sounds familiar), so I thought I'd put this page together as a starting point for others. So if you're thinking of moving to the USA, and in particular if you're from the UK, read on...
I'm aiming to cover the basics of moving to the States, such as visa requirements, employment opportunities and tax laws, along with more general info and links to car companies, accomodation agencies and similar stuff. I'll be adding to the site most weeks, so be sure to bookmark it (I'm practising my Web-page skills as well, so the layout should get a bit smarter too!). And if you have any suggestions let me know at [email protected].
I've included a range of links on the site that should prove useful. Full credit to the people preparing those sites - it's all their work, and nothing to do with me. I've made every effort to check the information on this page, including the currentness of the links, but if anything is wrong I'm sorry, but I'm not liable.
Far and away the best site I've found for checking out the cost of renting a house is Rent.Net, at
It includes floor plans and pictures of most of the properties, plus 360 degree views of some apartments (takes a while to download, but that's what weekend call rates are for).
The good news is that cars are much cheaper in America than over here. As a guide a basic Vauxhall Corsa equivalent is around £5,000, and a good Mondeo type is about £10,000. Many of the major manufacturers have a 'build your own' feature that lets you specify a vehicle and get an estimated price. Try
http://www.ford.com/us/showrooms/index.html
http://www.gm.com/vehicles/us/index.html
http://www.jeepunpaved.com/alt_home.html
The best fields to get work in are:
Nursing (British nurses are highly thought of in America)
Technology (computing, technology, chemicals etc)
Teaching (mainly English as a foreign language)
In each case you are usually better off if you actually have skills in these areas, rather than experience of managing others - the downsizing of recent years has meant that there are plenty of American managers spare.
The Inland Revenue Service has a very informative site covering general taxation advice, tax thresholds and advice for resident aliens (that's us).
http://www.irs.ustreas.gov is the home page, and
http://www.irs.ustreas.gov/prod/ind_info/tax_tables/index.html gives the amount of tax you'll pay for a given salary.
Remember, in the States you may also pay a State Tax, which ranges from nothing up to around 10%. I've not been able to find specific information or a link on this, so if you know something e-mail me.
In addition to this there are taxes on property and purchases (like VAT but at a lower rate) amongst others. All of this looks pretty confusing