Personal

Tax

UK resident non-domiciliaries

People who live in the UK but are not intending to live there permanently and die there are said to be UK resident but non-domiciled. They are liable to UK tax on the ‘remittance' basis - in other words, foreign source income and gains escape tax so long as they are not remitted into the UK. Further, offshore trusts can be used to effectively reduce the capital gains tax rate to zero, even if funds are remitted into the UK. Careful planning (both before and after becoming UK resident) is required to ensure optimal benefits are conferred by these rules and many traps exist for those who do not have the right level of advice.

Our extensive experience in advising individual clients whose wealth involves complex multi-jurisdictional structures serves us well when it comes to advising our non-domiciled clients on the most efficient structures for their circumstances.

Recent work 

  • Providing longstanding advice to a family which founded a household name business, which is owned via a series of offshore trusts.  Our advice has involved considering devolution of the business over time, the effect of corporate re-financing upon the trusts and beneficiaries, and generally ensuring that an optimal UK tax position is achieved.
  • Advising a non-UK domiciled individual in advance of his becoming UK resident, which involved ensuring that his assets were organised so as to mitigate his UK tax exposure once resident. We created trusts to hold key business assets as well as drafting Wills and advising on the purchase of UK residential property.
  • Counselling a UK resident but non UK-domiciled client on his offshore holding structure and its UK tax profile, which led to a significant restructuring.

© Withers 2007 - 2008