Saudi Red Crescent Authority

[Danbo]

Documentation

Travis,
I'll see you Thursday in Riyadh. I checked my NYS background letter and it lists well over 1,000 hours of training so I hope I'm ok. I only have copies of the reference letters and fingerprint results as the KSA Embassy didn't send them back, I mentioned this to Assma and she says it appears I have everything. Your packing list and information is invaluable and we all owe you a great debt. Looking forward to the trip, See you Thursday, now we've got NY and Texas covered.
Dan

 

[uh60safety]

Employment through Action Aviation

Any newly employed pilots on here? Questions for you if there are.

 

[Hoppymedic]

Getting ready for interview

I am getting ready for an interview with action aviation to go over SRCA I have been reading the posts and keeping up with it, has anyone been through the action aviation hiring process yet?

 

[helimedic39]

Hey Hoppy, I went through Action and will be leaving the 15th feb for Saudi. Feel free to ask any questions. I will answer what i can.

 

[Hoppymedic]

cool deal thanks Helimedic, when did u start the process and how difficult was it to get the ball rolling, I have been emailing Jay back and forth and he has been good about answering any questions that have come up. I have all my paper work together and just waiting for hm to tell me to send it

 

[helimedic39]

Jay has been great. He has made this whole process fast and efficient. I think I began middle of December. Once I got all my paperwork together and my passport I was then able to move forward. It only took me 7 days to get my visa from the saudi embassy. So when the ball gets rolling, things move fast.

 

[Hoppymedic]

cool deal that is good to hear, I noticed in a post earlier from Jay that Action is a contract service that is only hiring for 6 months at a time with extensions after that time, and possibly being able to move over to a full time position with SRCA. With out the "full time" position like he said you cant open a bank account or buy a car or anything like that. Have you asked him about the full time vs part time thing yet. Hopefullyit will work out in our favor and things will go well, I saw the pics that WTput up on his blog, nice looking airframe i am looking forward to getting in her...

 

[Hoppymedic]

Also one other thing...

Has anyone herd anything about the fixed wing project that they have been talking about. Like what that time line looks like... ect

 

[ExpatMedic0]

You action aviation guys are making WAY better time than us SRCA guys. It sounds like us SRCA guys are averaging 4-6 months of processing on average from start of the process until in country.

 

[Hoppymedic]

yea shulz it appears so, but it seems like it is only a 6 mnth thing with option to reup... but not a full time position like with SRCA... but will find out more soon hopefully

 

[helimedic39]

my contract is actually for 1 year. It is true that we can't open up bank accounts out there so i am just having it deposited into my us account. This won't effect your taxes. Still won't have to pay them. The main reason we can't open up an account is you need to have a residence visa and we are going on a business visa as consultants.

 

[Hoppymedic]

cool Helimedic, do you have a deployment date yet? so you can go ahead and sign for a year with action? ok then i guess that quels that thought pattern... thanks much for the info

 

[helimedic39]

Well i just got my schedule today and i'm set to train the 15/16th...on shift the 17th on. I was initially told the contract was 6 months but when i actually got it, it was for 1 year. No complaints here. Makes things much easier.

 

[Hoppymedic]

ok kewl so u r in country now? would like to hear how the housing is and everything else. My wife was over there in '07 working for KSA in EMS... she enjoyed it and has had nothing but great things to say about it... she still has a bunch of contacts over there. what is up with the fixed wing part of this and also the jeddah base that was supposed to go up any ideas...

 

[helimedic39]

I am still in Arizona. I should have my travel confirmation early this week. I will definitely keep you informed on living. For now we are being put up in the riyadh hotel intercontinental while they acquire more compound housing. Not to sure about the fixed wing portion. I know that we are being hired as rotar and only rotar. Certainly once arriving in country and they feel whoever is not appropriate for that role, they might be able to offer something else. My contract says that i am based out of Riyadh however Jay said it's possible, not likely that I will work in Jeddah when needed. So that possibility does exist. I will take lots of pictures since i like photography a lot. The helicopter is nice. They compare it to a agusta koala a119 with a little bit more power. The config inside is good.

 

[Hoppymedic]

yea i saw the pics that travis posted on his blog, she looks nice, and appears to have a great track record from what i have researched... well good deal hopefully i will get the cahnce to see u over there, soon hopefully, hey btw what do u know about trauma flight in scottsdale

 

[helimedic39]

Trauma flight is a fairly new service. They are flying a jet ranger. Not a strong program. This state has way too many helicopters, its ridiculous. They are based out of sun city west i believe at boswell hospital. I don't know too much about it though.

 

[akflightmedic]

This won't effect your taxes. Still won't have to pay them.

1. If you spend more than 35 days inside the US, you will have to pay full taxes.

Ways to avoid this are to switch around your tax years and not file as a typical calendar year. It is easy to do but you can get in over your head without the help of a CPA. Speaking of tax assistance, screen your tax people because most have no clue about overseas tax exemption laws and rules (especially those workers that set up for tax season at grocery stores, etc).

2. If you are employed by an American company, you still have to pay FICA/Medicare taxes. Regardless of them being based out of Dubai, Bangalore, or the UK, if their parent company is American you will have to pay. If not, then you are good to go.

I will use KBR as an example. KBR is out of Texas, yet they created a subsidiary company in Dubai called Service Employees International. All the contractors that worked for KBR were actually working for SEii. Then George Bush passed the Heart Act in 2006 which required them to start withholding the previous mentioned taxes.

As I said, as long as the company is not American based in any way, either offices there or parent company, then you are excluded from taxes.

In addition to that, part of the act also changed the way we do pay when it is time. I have written this before in other threads.

Previously (using rough numbers here for example only) if you earned 100K for the year, the first 80K was tax exempt and then you would pay taxes on 20K at the 20K tax base.

Now if you earn 100K, you will pay taxes on the remaining 20K at the 100K tax base.

Big difference...

Why is this stuff important?

Imagine if you take this job and you spend your first holiday back home and you are watching the days carefully.

Then you encounter a family emergency later in the year that requires you to be home as well. Go over your days and you now owe a lot of money...seen it happen many times.

Best advice is to stay abroad and not risk it. Those of you with family there, great. Tell inlaws and grandparents they can come over to visit, but I would not do any trips home period unless absolutely necessary.

Also remember if you get terminated for whatever reason, unless you start another overseas job soon, you will pay taxes and then basically based on the wages you guys are earning...all of this would have been pointless cause no tax is the only thing that makes it financially worth it.

Good luck to you all!

 

[akflightmedic]

Forgot to mention....

Save EVERY receipt!!

Anything you spend on or for the job, SAVE IT!

Food, gas, mileage to airports, tolls, taxis, boxes mailed, storage fees, new clothes...you name it. Anything at all...SAVE IT!

Also document everything you spent "moving" for a new job as that is a HUGE tax write off.

 

[helimedic39]

Yeah i didn't mean to put it so simply. I did all the research into it. But you did add some points that are good to know. So thank you.