Partly because there's so much to be made from helping these people abuse the UK tax system. Which is why guides like this on how to do so are so readily available.
Which makes me delighted to note that HMRC are not accepting non-dom claims arising from the tax amnesty at face value. Indeed, the following are particularly welcome words (said to Accountancy Age):
Where we suddenly see non-domiciled applications from people in their forties, fifties and sixties who have never claimed to be non-doms before, we are going to take a very hard look at them and challenge applications in the civil courts if we have to,' an HMRC spokesman said.
Quite right to. It's time that applying to be non-domiciled became very hard.
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I’m not sure that I agree that becoming non-dom should become very hard. Its a matter of freedom of choice and people should be able to do it for any reason. These are the freedoms that many have fought hard to defend for generations. However, I do believe that it should be made much more difficult for those who have undeclared offshore funds.
On the other hand, would making domicile loss much harder not skew the playing field much more in the favour of the ‘advantaged non-dom’?
John
The problem of the advantaged non dom is solved by removing the advantage
Richard
I’m confused as to why HMRC said that they would go to court if UK resident taxpayers suddenly claim to be not domiciled in the UK in an effort to avoid beling liable to tax on the interest on their offshore bank accounts.
In the first instance I doubt HMRC would need challenge new claims to non-dom status in the courts. If the income from the offshore account has been remitted to the UK (either directly or constructively) it will be subject to UK tax even regardless of the domicile status of the ‘taxpayer’.
Surely the first question is not to assess the application for non dom status but rather to see if the interest remains taxable.
If a long term UK resident has not previously claimed non dom status I would expect that they were also not aware of the remittance rules.
Mark
I have been reliably informed that your reasoning has been found in practice by HMRC over the last month or so.
Richard