Scottish Independence

Well having read the relevant sections of the Scottish government's white paper 'Scotland's Future' I am disappointed though not surprised to find it to be nothing more than an SNP manifesto long on promises, short on facts, full of assumptions and of no legal standing whatsoever. This was billed as being a blue print for Scottish Independence, that answered all the questions, however I am none the wise with regard to my questions and if anything I am even more confused, on the one hand they state that there will be no change banking across the UK and Scotland, but on the other that they will be setting up their own regulatory authoritise. 

Very good.

Though when splitting up the partner with the least financial clout would like to continue to have recourse to the credit rating and credibility of lender of last resort status which has previously been there as a consequence of their former spouse's income and assets. Whether the former partner is going to feel quite so happy doing that esp. given they will have lost any last semblance of control over the way their  ex conducts their financial affairs is  I feel a reasonable question to ask.

Is that very different from most marriages? (Not mine of course )

Rather than a divorce, its more akin to a fiscally naive Teenager wanting leaving home, with great plans for what they are going to different from their parents whilst still expecting to be underwritten by the bank of mum and dad . 

Since Scotland would become a different country you would need to file a tax return and report the Scottish interest income separately from your UK interest income, just as those who lend to other foreign countries do, with one entry required for each country involved. Any foreign interest income triggers the tax return requirement. Note that the country is the country of the interest payer so a Scottish citizen residing in England would not be considered Scottish for this purpose. The location of the lending platform is irrelevant and so is the currency, though HMRC's requirement is daily exchange rates if the amounts are not minor, for minor amounts their foreign team have said that they would accept any reasonable rate.

Now seems like a good time for those who do not want to complete a tax return to start to ask lending platforms for options not to lend to a potential foreign country - either Scotland or the rest of the UK depending on your own country of residence - and for ways to sell just Scottish or just non-Scottish loans. Asking about their plans to handle a potential Scottish currency and provide HMRC-compliant exchange rate based tax reporting would also be useful. With loans lasting years and arrangements potentially lasting decades it's already late in the game if you want to avoid the tax return requirement.

Also note that people are allowed to move between countries so even if you were to start out making no Scottish loans you'd probably end up with some and that tax return requirement unless there's a way to sell them, regardless of whether they have defaulted or not. But you can at least potentially make the amounts trivial by trying not to lend to Scottish borrowers as soon as possible.

Asking about it now might prompt the P2P lenders to try to get some transitional exemption from different country reporting requirement, though I don't see a way to avoid the exchange rate issue unless the pipe dream of having the same currency comes about. That seems unlikely because it's disadvantageous to the rest of the UK, which would pay the costs of stabilising the Scottish institutions and borrowing costs and budget policies, without receiving the revenue for taking on that risk and costs of the risk-reduced subsidised Scottish borrowing. So I assume we'll see a Scotty to replace the Pound at some point, if independence happens.

Are trying to imply that the whole thing is a bit of a b*lls up?