Not out of UK for a whole tax year

**WindyAnna** · 3 December 2007, 10:42

Mr WA worked part of a year in the Netherlands and part in the UK a couple of years back. his NL accountant worked out that it was best for him to pay tax in NL for those months he worked there and UK tax for the UK work. apparently paying the whole year on the tax of either country where he wasn't always working there would mean paying more. Not sure if Germany would be the same but I would expect your German accountant to be able to advise.

**tim123** · 3 December 2007, 11:56

Originally posted by Agent_BB View Post

I was out of the UK, contracting in Germany from Sept 06 until Aug 07.

From April 06 until Sept I was contracrting in West london, and now I am back contracting in the UK again.

What is the best option for me in terms of paying tax, should I pay UK tax for my time in Germany, or would I be better off paying German tax and and extra tax as may be deemed apopropriate by HMRC?

I have been in cont5act with accountant in Germany who wants expense receipts for teh job I had in West London, that is insane, I had to send them to my previous umbrella company! D'oh!

I'm getting rather worried as I know someone who worked in Switzerland who ended up getting taxed twice and they now have a 9k tax bill they can't pay (although he was perm and not a contractor). Any advice would be MUCH appreciated.

Ta.

Do you mean, what's best as in what is it that you should do, or what is it that is easier but which you might get away with.

The German rule on residence does not consider each tax year separately, so you only have to be resident for a consecutive 6 months for you to be Tax resident, even if it spans two tax years. So what you should do is account for German tax on your earnings in Germany and then used the double taxation treaty to avoid being double taxed on that income in the UK.

But if you didn't actually register in Germany (which as you are asking this question seems likely) you might get away with ignoring this responsibility. German bureaucracy is not as efficient as its reputation (which relies heavily on the tuton people conforming with the rules).

tim

**Agent_BB** · 19 December 2007, 15:40

Thanks, i did actually register.

it seems as though my German accountant has submitted a return to the German tax authorities, I gguess I should just sit back and wait to find out how much I owe?

meanwhile, my UK tax situation is completely up the sh1tter big-time.

There was a mix-up between teh client where I'm working at and the umbrella company as to the frequency of invoicesand my monthly pay is now being assessed against a weekly tax allowance. The taxman has also told the umbrella company to put me on an emergency tax code (no justrification offered for this), despite this being my first job back in UK since beginning of April. I've just spojken to someone at umbrella company now, and they've told me to keep chasing with the taxman, otherwise they HMRC won't bother doing anything!

Not sure how I go about making sure HMRC don';t double-tax me I don't know. there seems to be an inability tehre to grasp my situation. They've recently sent me a letter informing me that I will now have to fill in tax returns despite teh fact i am *not* self-employed.

it really is tremendously frustrating.

**NotAllThere** · 19 December 2007, 16:53

There is no way that you should end up getting taxed twice. If that happens it means that someone somewhere has ****ed up.

Having to fill in a tax return is irrelevant to being self-employed or not.

Eventually it should all get sorted out... but you might have to pay a lot of tax that later gets refunded. You might get interest on it though...

Not out of UK for a whole tax year