Becoming non-resident of UK?

[wayn3]

It seems to me that if you are willing to spend less than 90 days in each place (on tourist visa / no visa) then you don't need to be resident anywhere? wany3, you know anything about this?

Technically, yes. Practically, if you are a resident of nowhere, you cant claim jurisdiction anywhere so every place you visit will just fuck you over whichever way they want. If you want to pay no taxes, you need to take up residence at a place that protects you from other governments through treaties.

The thing is that they just assume tax responsibility, so as long as you dont live somewhere that explicitly sets a tax rate to 0, you dont pay taxes so theyll make you pay their tax rate.

no legal advice

 

[wayn3]

if you guys desperately need to cling to the westernized world or cant jump through a couple hoops, you could try out the maltese retirement scheme. anyone worth 5 figures should easily qualify for that.

Malta: Little Known Tax Haven within EU

 

[wayn3]

Any reason for not off-shoring a limited company and living wherever you want? I know someone who moved to Ireland and then to the carribean for a year to avoid tax issues on a company buyout and was very happy to get back home.

reporting requirements hell, esp for our american friends.

hand over all your assets to a trust fund and become the manager. make your unborn children the beneficiaries.

Could you explain more please? Do you mean a corporation somewhere with 0% corp tax, then a low salary paid by that corporation, which income tax is paid on?

the difficult part is convincing the country that owns your citizenship that your business should be offshore. once thats been taken care of, nobody will give you shit about not paying yourself a salary.

 

[mituozo]

Could you explain more please? Do you mean a corporation somewhere with 0% corp tax, then a low salary paid by that corporation, which income tax is paid on?

You can setup a Panama corp offshore that is in no way linked to your name. You have private contracts with nominee directors, boards, etc for instant resignation and so forth. You can then funnel all your income into the panama account (especially if you are an affiliate and all the income comes from overseas - even better ), and you can be a contractor working with said company. You then just take payments for your services as a sole trader in the UK. Next, setup other offshore companies in tax havens to diversify risk, and have the panama company pay money out to those. Those companies again are all nominee run and in no way linked to you, and buy your property, investments, etc..

The challenges come when you start wanting to move large sums of money into the UK. Basically if you want to have the money at your disposal to buy things with in the UK, you need to pay tax on it.

If you move £thousands into the UK and try to avoid paying tax on it you're going to get fucked over, and then a full investigation will get launched into the entire paper trail, etc.. At which point you've earned yourself a one way ticket to prison.

 

[wayn3]

You can setup a Panama corp offshore that is in no way linked to your name. You have private contracts with nominee directors, boards, etc for instant resignation and so forth. You can then funnel all your income into the panama account (especially if you are an affiliate and all the income comes from overseas - even better ), and you can be a contractor working with said company. You then just take payments for your services as a sole trader in the UK. Next, setup other offshore companies in tax havens to diversify risk, and have the panama company pay money out to those. Those companies again are all nominee run and in no way linked to you, and buy your property, investments, etc..

While this "works", it doesnt reduce your tax liability by a buck because western european countries have laws in place that explicitly forbid these kinds of things.

The challenges come when you start wanting to move large sums of money into the UK. Basically if you want to have the money at your disposal to buy things with in the UK, you need to pay tax on it.

anonymous credit cards.

If you move £thousands into the UK and try to avoid paying tax on it you're going to get fucked over, and then a full investigation will get launched into the entire paper trail, etc.. At which point you've earned yourself a one way ticket to prison.

By announcing the movement of money before it happens, you take the illegality out of it, making it a non-crime. People always overcomplicate shit. Most fraud codes revolve around the "intention to defraud" (tax evasion is a special case of fraud). If you announce what youre doing, you will, in most cases, dodge the prisonticket. The problem with that is that youll go back to negotiating your tax liability.

There are a million ways to evade taxes. If youre trying to evade taxes, youre living on borrowed time. Youll always have to dodge bullets. Most of them arent hard to dodge, and if you have good lawyers on retainer, theyll save your ass most of the time. This might sound like lots of fun when youre young, and might fit your lifestyle, but when you have a wife and kids, you cant just go back to playing nice. The "crimes" you pulled dont leave your name just because youve changed. Governments will have increasing control over the flow of money around the globe.

Consider the implications. Some of you forge your exit strategies. "In case murika goes south, ill just renounce my citizenship". That you dont own a citizenship anymore doesnt matter to them when they have evidence on file for 7 figures in tax evasion. In that case, you better be a chinese citizen. Theyre about the only ones in the world who dont extradite your sad white ass.

And quit spelling your evasion schemes out on the internet.

 

[warling]

It's not essential but is highly recommended. Given that HMRC look at several factors to decide if you are now non-resident, submitting a P85 when you leave ticks one of the boxes and works in your favour.

Do you really need to notify the HMRC that you have left (with the P85) if you don't have any money in the UK? I never got round to doing it but don't have any assets in the UK and it is easy to prove I'm away with a look at my passport.

 

[warling]

Had a quick chat with an accountant about this a couple of months ago - apparently they're strongly considering changing it from 90 days to (I think?) 7ish.

You're right, the laws are due to change in April 2013. A much clearer SRT (statutory residence test) comes into effect.

One of the most promising parts of this change is that if you are in the UK for less than 10 days in an entire tax year, you become non-resident with no other questions asked. This obviously makes salary/income/dividends free of UK tax for the period you are a non-resident.

So simple, and how it should of been done years ago.

 

[bobby_custard]

Matt I'm assuming you've already got a ltd company set up already and an accountant bringing down the company's tax liability and that you are paying yourself dividends rather than salary over the 7k salary or whatever the figure is now.

Depending on your company's profits it may be advantageous to look at forming a company somewhere like the channel islands (or if you're up north maybe Isle of Man?)

It may be something you want to look into whether it's worth doing for your situation or not.

 

[hungryim]

You're right, the laws are due to change in April 2013. A much clearer SRT (statutory residence test) comes into effect.

One of the most promising parts of this change is that if you are in the UK for less than 10 days in an entire tax year, you become non-resident with no other questions asked. This obviously makes salary/income/dividends free of UK tax for the period you are a non-resident.

So simple, and how it should of been done years ago.

Dug up a bit of info on this:
http://www.kpmg.com/UK/en/IssuesAnd...ons/Documents/PDF/Tax/srt-flowchart-final.pdf

Looks good as you can simply work out how long you want to be in the UK and adjust circumstances accordingly. One thing I think that may be a problem though is that I don't believe you are allowed to actually do any work whilst you're in the UK.

 

[Amoxicillin]

First off, go get residency somewhere with half decent banking, and no foreign income tax. Countries like the Philippines make this easy if you are over 35, or require you to invest some money locally if you are under 35. If you are a legal resident of another country, it becomes difficult for the UK to claim you are a tax dodge. You can even file a few dollars in taxes a year just to create a paper trail.

You can then register a Hong Kong corp, and as long as you aren't there for more than 60 days in the year, the corp pays zero tax, and you can be hired as a zero income tax employee. HK has stable banking, and most people there have a solid work ethic. Only issue is that HK isn't all that anonymous, but since you have residency elsewhere, that's not really an issue.

 

[dynamicsoul]

incorporate in Belize.. only need an office as foreign business, no taaaxx

 

[wezcountry]

Has anybody done this for tax purposes? Care to share any details?

All I've found in my brief research is this: HM Revenue & Customs: Income Tax when leaving the UK

It seems as long as most of the year is spent outside of the UK, up to around 90 days can be spent "visiting" (probably not a good idea to rent / own a property in the UK if doing this?)

Obviously I would talk to a professional before doing any of this.

I'm resident in Italy and I'm trying to OPT-IN to the UK system. As far as I can see it's the fairest in Europe and a hell of a lot better than here.

You need to stay outside of the UK 186 days in any one year to prevent overseas income being taxed in the UK.

Btw, a great place for tax is Romania. They have a flat rate of 16%.

 

[wezcountry]

I've traveled and lived overseas. I didn't do it on someone elses dime.

I do love your hypocrisy though. Take, take, take and when it's your turn to pay, run away. lol

It's a tough one G. I truly wanted to make a financial contribution here in Italy and even tried it for a year. Result = I got totally fucked and not only that the government is completely corrupt, and it left a bad taste in my mouth.

However I do agree with paying taxes I just don't want to pay them to the mafia, so I'm paying back into the UK. The EU has a system where you get free healthcare across the board if you pay tax somewhere in the EU so it all works-out in the end.

 

[hungryim]

I'm resident in Italy and I'm trying to OPT-IN to the UK system. As far as I can see it's the fairest in Europe and a hell of a lot better than here.

I've heard terrible things about the tax structure in Italy, specifically it being bad for IM when you have many overseas expenses.

That said, UK is still pretty high imo. Over 50% effective tax rate in some circumstances. I'd much rather shift to somewhere like Malta for a couple of years and come back with a nice pocket of change to live comfortably in the UK for the foreseeable future.

 

[Amoxicillin]

I've heard terrible things about the tax structure in Italy, specifically it being bad for IM when you have many overseas expenses.

That said, UK is still pretty high imo. Over 50% effective tax rate in some circumstances. I'd much rather shift to somewhere like Malta for a couple of years and come back with a nice pocket of change to live comfortably in the UK for the foreseeable future.

If you're a UK citizen, why not spend some time as a HK resident, max 17% tax.

 

[evelynds]

so much idiocy in here. you can have another passport in your pocket in less time than it takes replying to this thread. 99% of people who ask about 2nd nationalities/passports end up not following through even if you put one in front of their nose.......

 

[bluechinagroup]

You can then register a Hong Kong corp, and as long as you aren't there for more than 60 days in the year, the corp pays zero tax, and you can be hired as a zero income tax employee. HK has stable banking, and most people there have a solid work ethic. Only issue is that HK isn't all that anonymous, but since you have residency elsewhere, that's not really an issue.

Hong Kong itself also has no foreign income tax. You can setup a British Virgin Islands corporation, open a Hong Kong bank account under it, and you can park all of your offshore income in a domestic HK bank account totally tax free.

Also if you want privacy in Hong Kong, nominee directors and shareholders are available. Also soon additional privacy protection will be available to directors due to recent amendments to the Companies Ordinance.

Hong Kong bank accounts are very safe too. There has never been a bank failure in Hong Kong. HK banks didn't bet everything on Greece like the banks in Cyprus did.