Tax exiles' cheap attitude to nationality | Liam Firth | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk .
Good to see this on Comment is Free:
Every year, around this time, there is a conference given for those who wish to escape this cursedly overtaxed isle and depart to warmer climes: namely, the Caribbean islands of St Kitts and Nevis (or, rather less warm, Switzerland). The Global Residence and Citizenship Conference, as it is known, is held every year in the tax-dodging capitals of the world: Hong Kong, Dubai, and this year in Zurich.
The author's logic is impeccable:
It is not so much the buying of citizenship which is so irksome, but the shocking ease with which some people could subject their lives to a simple, cold calculation of income and expense: will I pay more money to the government here or there, by lying on a Caribbean beach or in a tackily furnished ski lodge? (The exact location is fairly unimportant, just as long as there are extensive helicopter facilities and built-in widescreen televisions.)
The real irony is, of course, that by being so concerned with the avoidance of tax, it becomes the organising principle in your life. For such denizens of tax havens, tax is not just something you have to do once a year by filling in a form or arranging a meeting with your accountant; it can influence where you live, whom you sleep with, where your children go to school, which people you talk to and associate with, even down to your identity as a citizen.
Please read it. It's great to to see an undergraduate a) thinking this b) getting an airing for it c) being willing to face the flak from the usual right wing idiots on CiF for it.
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“Every year, around this time, there is a conference given for those who wish to escape this cursedly overtaxed isle and depart to warmer climes: namely, the Caribbean islands of St Kitts and Nevis (or, rather less warm, Switzerland)”
A different perspective is is that many people want to move overseas for a variety of reasons including the weather, and the level of tax is an important, but not the only, factor for those deciding to leave.
Alex
Your choice: are you
1) naive
2) disingenuous
3) really so stupid that you think anyone will take this comment seriously?
Because contextually it is impossible to take it seriously
Richard
i understood from your previuos comments about the domicile rule that it was the current residence which was important not the place of your origin. i was about to change my nationality next year and now i am somehow puzzled if it is deemed to be unethical together with moving to another country?
Billy:
To the extend one can make sense of your grammar, the answer is that domicile is about ‘place of origin’. If you were born outside the UK then, however many years you’ve lived here, you can legally argue that your ‘domicile’ is where you were born. It’s a concept which dates back to the time of empire and is entirely unknown in other EU countries.
George
Actually Richard, in my career I have only met one person who moved countries simply for tax reasons.
Tax is a reason, but there are usually many factors involved in the decision.
As for Domicile it usually is where your father was born. But there also is your deemed domicile.
And it is true if you are trying to rid yourself of a UK residence and domicle there are a large number of hoops you have to go through and think about, inluding where your children go to school, what societies you belong too, even where you keep your private documents.
According to the ATT examinations I took (and passed), you acquire your domicile from your father at birth (i.e. it is not necessarily where he was born).
It is quite difficult to change your country of domicile, as you must sever all material links with your previous country in order to establish a new domicile.
Creg – I understand that a ‘deemed domicile’ is for IHT purposes only.
For more, see http://www.taxationweb.co.uk/tax-articles/general/actual-and-deemed-domicile.html
GWI
sorry for my grammar, but nationality is also just a question where and to what parents you were born. and the thing i don’t understand is that why Richard is supporting the view that somebody’s nationality is very important while fighting against the notion of domicile?
Billy
I object to the domicile rule
I also object to artificial relocations of residence and tax residence
And to accountants, and their professional bodies, who support the principle that a person should be allowed to be tax resident no where
The issues are related, but not the same
They have different implications for different taxes
Richard