As an experienced businessman, I believe that if there is an opportunity to optimise your expenses, you should take it! When I moved to the UK, I immediately became interested in legal ways to reduce my tax burden, but I decided to entrust the solution to this issue to professionals, so I turned to Imperial & Legal again. The specialists of the company did everything at the highest level!
Andy is a long-standing client of Imperial & Legal. We helped him to obtain a UK investor visa and settle in London. He is originally from South Africa, but he changes locations quite often to suit his business needs. He is in the shipping business, so his geographical interests span the globe, from the North Seas to South East Asia and from the Caribbean islands to the Middle East.
Andy didn’t choose the UK by chance either, as its location more than suited the interests of the business. There are over 90 ports in the UK, and the London cargo hub handles 50 million tonnes of cargo a year. It’s also within easy reach of France’s major port cities such as Marseille, Le Havre and others.
When investing in the British economy, Andy naturally also chose the freight sector as the most understandable and intimate line of business, in which he was well versed and knew how to do business in order to make money. After all, the aim of the investment was not only to obtain the most comfortable of British visas – he had big plans to increase his own income.
As a result, he invested in a service that, using modern IT technologies, served freight brokers and ship owners. The new software allowed for more efficient planning of vessel loading and closer monitoring of cargo storage conditions.
Things were really going well and Andy was getting good dividends from the company. And the main business was making an impressive profit. Being an experienced businessman, the man clearly knew two things. The first: you have to be spotlessly clean in front of the tax service. The second: there will always be loopholes in the legislation which will allow you to reduce taxes on perfectly legal grounds.
This is why the client contacted us again. He was completely satisfied with the experience of working with Imperial & Legal in obtaining an investor visa. Therefore, he chose our specialists to handle his financial affairs as well.
Andy is a 56 year old South African entrepreneur specialising in sea freight. He holds a UK investor visa.
Comprehensive scheme design to help regularise financial flows and minimise taxation in England.
Imperial & Legal’s accountants firstly assessed the available assets. The client owned an investment portfolio with an account in an English bank, which was necessary to obtain an investor visa. He also had an extensive overseas business that covered dozens of countries.
As Andy was living in the UK at the time and had permanent residence status, he was a tax resident of the UK. But since he was born in South Africa, he remained domiciled in that country, and for England, accordingly, he was non-domiciled.
On this basis Andy was able to benefit from a special tax regime called remittance tax. In accordance with this regime, a foreigner living in the United Kingdom must pay tax only on income received directly in the UK, as well as on those funds that were brought to the island from abroad. Income earned outside of the UK and held in overseas accounts is not taxable.
Our tax lawyers explained all this to the client and prepared a personal tax return for him, where they recognised the dividends received from the investment portfolio in Britain and the amounts of money that came into the British account from other countries. Accordingly, the entrepreneur paid income tax only on them, which left him completely satisfied.
The UK is interested in the inflow of foreign capital into the country, and therefore has a rather flexible tax policy towards them.
In particular, the distinction between “tax resident” and “domicile/domicile” allows for significant optimisation of taxes on income and capital gains earned outside the United Kingdom. For this purpose, when filing a tax return, it is necessary to take advantage of the right of remittance, which triggers this very favourable regime.
It is worth noting that Britain’s loyalty to foreign capital is quite high. Of course, the authorities expect that sooner or later investors will switch to a full-fledged taxation regime. But they are pushing them towards it rather gently.
In particular, remittance becomes chargeable if the tax resident has lived in Foggy Albion for 7 years out of 9. The annual fee in this case is £30,000. And if a person has been a tax resident for 12 years out of 14, the fee increases to £60,000. And only if the immigrant lives in the country 17 years out of 20, he will be considered a conditional domicile – that is, obliged to pay taxes on all profits, including foreign profits.
Imperial & Legal specialists will help you to understand all the intricacies of the UK legislation and choose the best taxation regime, as well as prepare your annual tax return for submission to the fiscal authorities. Write to us and we will answer all your questions about obtaining a visa, doing business and the work of government authorities in the UK.
We will work with you to find a customised solution for your immigration, second citizenship, business, tax and other needs.
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