A particular niche of Charter Tax is looking after our clients’ international tax planning requirements, including both personal and corporate international tax planning. This places us in an ideal position to support individuals, such as internationally mobile entrepreneurs and high net worth individuals moving jurisdiction, as well as corporates wishing to grow or restructure internationally.
Our work also includes a large focus on ex-pats living abroad. Such clients will often have quite different requirements, depending on whether or not they plan to return to the UK and, if so, within what timeframe.
Issues that often arise for such clients, and on which we are well placed to advise, will include:
- Reviewing the UK residency rules to ensure that the ex-pat has genuinely ceased to be UK resident – and planning when they may re-commence residence.
- Looking at whether the ex-pat is abroad for only a short stay (in particular less than five years) and, if so, whether he will need to be aware of any issues under the rules for ‘temporary non-residents’ and, if so, how best to plan against this.
- Looking at whether it may be possible for the ex-pat to be out of the UK so long as to ceased to be domiciled in the UK, and how best an ex-pat may increase their chances of achieving this.
Currently, around 5.5 million people from Britain live overseas, according to the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) with these people spread throughout 158 countries.
The reasons why somebody moves abroad are varied but the main one is for the career opportunities it offers, with the IPPR reporting that two-thirds of British expats leave the country for work reasons.
Other people make the move to improve their lifestyle, perhaps to spend more time outside in the sunshine than the UK can guarantee, while younger people might decide to live abroad for the adventure and sport it offers. Finally, others simply want to reunite with family or friends.
While the residents of other parts of the EU tend to move within the EU, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), 33% of all British-born emigrants living outside the UK in 2017 lived in Australia or New Zealand, 28% lived in the US or Canada and 26% in the EU – of which 6% lived in Ireland. By comparison, 49% of French-born emigrants living outside France were living in the EU in 2015 and 44% of German-born emigrants living outside Germany were living in the EU.
For those British people who have chosen to live within the EU, 69% of them live in Spain, France or Germany.
As a nation, we were pioneers of the expat lifestyle and were among the earliest and by far the largest community to emigrate out of Europe. The expansion of the British Empire during the first half of the 19th century saw an extraordinary dispersion of British people, notably to Australasia and North America but also to Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Hong Kong, Singapore, Jamaica, Barbados, British East Africa (Kenya today) and the Cape Colony (modern day South Africa).
The 1861 UK Census estimated the number of British people overseas to be around 2.5 million. However, it concluded that most of these were ‘not conventional settlers’ but rather ‘travellers, merchants, professionals, and military personnel’.
If lockdown has given you the opportunity to explore the idea of living overseas, then please do get in touch with any questions.
https://www.charter-tax.com/our-services/international-tax/non-doms-ex-pats/
