Taxing Matters

DOMICILE RULINGS

Many people will be aware of the difficulties which have arisen in obtaining a domicile ruling from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC). If an individual wants to know where he is domiciled, he has to seek professional advice because HMRC will not engage in correspondence on the matter.

Not that it gave formal rulings anyway—but obtaining its view was pretty valuable. HMRC takes the—not altogether unreasonable—view that it will only consider the matter if there is a tax liability dependent upon it. For a UK resident, this is not a problem; if he has foreign income he can explain on his tax return that this income is not taxable because it has not been remitted and he can tick the relevant boxes claiming to be domiciled abroad.

However, there are many people who are not UK resident and do not submit tax returns but who are still concerned about their domicile because that is what determines their liability to inheritance tax.