Proof of working for 10yrs

[LilAmy]

Well after a wee palaver of submitting our ITA and our cheque going missing we got a nice letter on Monday saying we had been accepted for consideration. Woo hoo we went....

Then today we got a letter saying they needed more ref's for Stu as he's claiming points for working 10yrs or more!!! Argggg Well apparantly when they say they want 10yrs work experience they dont mean that you've been working for 10yrs say since 1997 they want 10yrs of actual work.

As Stu has had maybe a month off here or there between roles he is a few months short of his 10yrs exeprience. As the company he worked for prior to 1997 is no longer a company and went bust so we cant get refs from them. We've been told by our Immi offier that we can contact the Inland Revenue and get a letter from them stating he's been working and paying tax's for X amount of years....nothings ever easy is it!

Just a note to any one who is having problems getting ref's you may be able to ask your immi officer if tax proof is enough if you cant get them all in.

[MotherBear]

Hi Amy,

Has Stu got any paperwork at all from his previous jobs, like old payslips, contracts, something on letterheadings etc. that connects him with previous companies. I think INZ will look at anything like that as well as old tax records.

If you're anything like us though, you'll have binned a load of old paperwork as it's too heavy to shift it when you're moving around the world.

BTW congrats on being accepted.

[LilAmy]

Hi MB,

I've got Mum going through all our payslips back in Edinburgh to see if theres anything there.

We've moved so many times I think we tend only to keep about 5yrs worth of things...such a pain.

[Dawn]

Gary's having to do this as well Amy. He was self-employed for 5 years between 95 and 2000 but didn't have an accountant do his books so can't provide written proof. The CO said to get a statement from IR saying he was self-employed and also one from the NI office to prove he was paying his own contributions. She also said that he would then have to get the IR statement verified by an English accountant. We're on to it

[MotherBear]

Stone the crows! (Sorry Selchie, I know you love crows) What a palaver.

[hatter5]

Amy,

Not sure how true this is but our "agent" advised that a reference from somebody else at the company at the time might be acceptable.

The example they gave was if an ex manager gave a reference (using letter headed paper from his/her current employer) this would back up your claim.

The IT game being as it is with the same faces moving between companies this should be a lot easier than dealing with the Inland Revenue (We're still receiving tax credit application forms even though we spoke to them many times telling them we were leaving the country for good).

This assumes you are still in contact with your old workmates though. By the time I submitted my ITA I had 9 years and 11 months of references and just had to provide my next wage slip.

Will the points make a difference? You have NZ work experience which may counter the loss of claiming 8 years of experience v's 10.

[LilAmy]

We'd loose another 10 points if we dont claim in that area.

I think we'll ask our immi officer if we need to use these points as we're still over 100points even if we loose an extra 10.

Thanks for that idea.

I think Stu keeps in touch with one lass from his work but she's in Oz and doesnt work now....liking all the ideas guys!

Thanks

[LilAmy]

Hi Guys,

Unfortunately we tried asking if we could loose the 10yrs work experience but our immi officer said we couldnt as we'd then fall out off the skilled migrant category??

The Inland Revenue faxed us the wrong dates so we had to call them back so hopefully we'll get that through. Although with immi being the way they are they want originals which is a pain with the UK postal strikes.

Dad's also scanned in Stu's P60 and some payslips and is posting everything around the 1996-1998 mark that he has for Stu but again we have to wait on them arriving with the strike.

We asked immi if we could courier them to a UK branch and he said NO as they're all independant branches but he will give us an extension as our deadline is next week!! I suppose thats something. But I just dont understand why another immi branch can confirm that the docs are OK - so many frustrations with this process....

I'm glad I'm not doing my medicals just now as I am sure with all this stress my blood pressure is sky high.

[duane1x]

I also claimed the 10 years and here's what I provided in the way of documentation:
A letter from the company that employed me during the timespan

Three copies of W-2 forms during the period. This is the annual statement of earnings you get in the US from your employer. Nowhere did anyone say to include this but it seemed more comprehensive than a single paystub. It also shows annual salary, which isn't supposed to be a factor but it does establish that I didn't work for say, only part of the year. The years I sent were not in a row - I think it was 2001, 2004, 2005. Something like that. Nothing from the 90's.

I also included a number of IT certificates that I sent to establish "skilled" work, and each of those also has dates as to when you earned the cert. No idea if this helped with the timeline.

And that's it. There were never any questions from the case officer in this regard. I provided a number and e-mail to a person at the employer but I don't believe there was any contact.

We also lost some points from the EOI stage. I had claimed bonus points for skills shortage area and after reading all the fine print I had learned that you had to have a degree in IT which I don't. So, under the Changes section in the ITA that was one of the things I said. That I was withdrawing the claim for those points. I think we were at 130 and went to 115 or 120. But that was apparently a non-issue at that point and we still had the skilled part, just not the bonus.

[LilAmy]

I wish I had your immi officer who was happy for you not to provide the full 10yrs proof our's wants everything from 1997-2007 he's a by the book type a guy I think (tee he) which is understandable.

Just hoping that everything we get to him will make him happy this time.