"Travelling Days" & paid in Euro questions

**Rebecca Loos** · 7 December 2005, 11:55

you can have a UK bank account in Euros, I believe most banks offer this, this would enable you to remitt your income to the UK in euros, and then only convert them into a GBP UK bank account when the exchange rate is favourable to you

Just a thought

**AlfredJPruffock** · 7 December 2005, 12:06

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**expat** · 7 December 2005, 12:46

Originally posted by dang65

would allow me to be resident here for just 3 days in every week and just stay with the UK tax and NI system. Is that correct?

Wrong. Even if you are not resident in France, money earned in France will be taxed by France.

It is true that if you are resident in the UK, you are liable for tax and NI in the UK on all your earnings.

Also, if you earn money in France, you will have to pay French tax on that; possibly not French "NI" if you are not resident there.

Then, when the UK taxes you on your French income, they should give you a credit for French tax paid.

So indeed, the net effect is that you pay UK NI, and tax at the rate of the more taxing of the 2 countries.

But it can be complicated, and if anything goes wrong in the process, it will almost certainly be to your cost. For example, the 2 countries may not agree on what constitutes a "tax". France imposes a compulsory payment of 10% on all income. Since this is "Social Contributions" and "not tax", you can't expect the UK taxman to give you credit for this. Also, you may run into problems declaring your French tax to the UK taxman, because you pay French taxes in arrears, not PAYE. You won't actually know until late 2006 what your 2005 taxes are.

BTW you can have a nonresident bank account in France, it's nothing special (i.e. doesn't cost more). Then you can send money to the UK when you want.

**tim123** · 7 December 2005, 15:10

I agree wih expat. It works something like that. It's best to try and avoid
remaining UK resident as you can not (legally) avoid paying local tax on monies earnt whilst physically resident in a county, even if you haven't become tax resident in that country.

tim

**dang65** · 7 December 2005, 15:25

Thanks for the above. It's so easy to get conflicting advice isn't it.

I'm wondering whether working through an umbrella company is the cause of this different view. It's my umbrella company that are advising me to stay in the UK system as long as I "don't stay for more than 183 days" (they don't actually say if this is 183 days in a calendar year, a tax year, a rolling 365 days or in my whole life).

Maybe the UK and French taxmen consider me to be employed by the umbrella company and simply posted abroad? Would this make any difference to the above scenario, or is their professional advice completely inaccurate?

Please don't turn this thread into a rant against umbrella companies, by-the-way. I'm just trying to establish the facts and figure out whether I'm being given good advice to stay in the UK system, or terrible advice.

**dang65** · 7 December 2005, 16:24

Done more searching around on this topic and found this page which doesn't look good at all. The 183 days seems to have nothing to do with days actually in the UK, or days travelling in either direction. It's just the length of time spent employed on a contract overseas. So, on a long term contract like mine I'm completely and totally liable to French tax, as mentioned above.

But what's this about being liable to UK income tax? "...you may be liable to pay income tax in the UK as well! If at any time in a given tax year you are Resident or Ordinarily Resident in the UK then you are liable to pay UK income tax on any money that you earn anywhere in the world."

Think I'll just do the first six months and hand my notice in, which is a shame because it's a good job, friendly people, good kit supplied... typical innit.

**wonderwaif** · 7 December 2005, 16:46

Originally posted by dang65

Done more searching around on this topic and found this page which doesn't look good at all. The 183 days seems to have nothing to do with days actually in the UK, or days travelling in either direction. It's just the length of time spent employed on a contract overseas. So, on a long term contract like mine I'm completely and totally liable to French tax, as mentioned above.

But what's this about being liable to UK income tax? "...you may be liable to pay income tax in the UK as well! If at any time in a given tax year you are Resident or Ordinarily Resident in the UK then you are liable to pay UK income tax on any money that you earn anywhere in the world."

Think I'll just do the first six months and hand my notice in, which is a shame because it's a good job, friendly people, good kit supplied... typical innit.

I worked in Holland for a year on PAYE and paid Dutch tax.
I had to complete a British Tax Return.
You have to work out what tax you would have paid if you had earned the money in the UK, then there is a section for claiming credit on Tax already paid in Holland. If you paid less in Holland than you would have in the UK, then you have to make up the difference.
If you would have paid less in the UK, tough!.
Don't know if that clears the waters or muddies them.

**dang65** · 7 December 2005, 16:53

I guess the waters are slowly becoming clearer, but that may just be the tears diluting them.

How long does one get to pay the UK balance of the tax then? I mean, do they just send you a bill for 13 grand and you have till Tuesday to pay it, or do you get some sort of installments option??

"Travelling Days" & paid in Euro questions