A landmark legal ruling suggests the taxman is closing the door on easy emigration from the UK.
Mervyn MacDonald, a partner at UK top-30 accountants and business advisers DTE, believes becoming non-resident for tax purposes is more difficult than ever. His warning follows the case of HM Revenue & Customs v Robert Gaines-Cooper in which the tax tribunal ruled against the taxpayer’s arguments that he was not a UK resident.
“Significantly, the tribunal found that the principle of excluding days or arrival and departure was a concession by HMRC and that the strict legal position was that all time spent in the UK should be taken into account,” MacDonald said. “Recent guidance from HMRC has confirmed that normally days of arrival and departure will continue to be ignored in computing the number of days spent in the UK, although clearly the use of ‘normally’ means this concession may not be granted if abuse is perceived.”