Shaking off UK tax residence by taking up full-time work abroad has never been as easy as taxpayers would prefer. This is illustrated by the decision in Paul Daniel v HMRC [2014] UKFTT 173 TC.
The detailed conditions required to achieve non-residence through overseas work are now set out in the statutory residence test, but greater certainty over the conditions will not necessarily make it easier to achieve non-residence. Taxpayers typically fail to work enough hours abroad over enough of the tax year to meet the description ‘full-time’ or, if they do, they often fail to keep enough records to prove this. The basic lessons from Paul Daniel and similar cases could be summarised as follows:
Shaking off UK tax residence by taking up full-time work abroad has never been as easy as taxpayers would prefer. This is illustrated by the decision in Paul Daniel v HMRC [2014] UKFTT 173 TC.
The detailed conditions required to achieve non-residence through overseas work are now set out in the statutory residence test, but greater certainty over the conditions will not necessarily make it easier to achieve non-residence. Taxpayers typically fail to work enough hours abroad over enough of the tax year to meet the description ‘full-time’ or, if they do, they often fail to keep enough records to prove this. The basic lessons from Paul Daniel and similar cases could be summarised as follows: