Urgent Advice Re Declaring Foreign Income

[mgp4]

I would really appreciate advice on the following as I am very confused...

I worked in a salaried full time job in Australia from Aug 2015 to August 2016 in the public sector. Prior and since these dates I have been living and working in a salaried full time job in the UK.

I did not realise that I would still be counted as UK resident for the entire of the 2015/16 tax year despite being in Australia for 8 months. I now understand that I have to declare my foreign income on my UK tax return and will be taxed in full on this minus any tax credit given for tax already paid in Australia.

Whilst I was in Australia I took advantage of a public sector scheme known as salary sacrifice where a prorportion of your income is deducted prior to tax for rent/mortgage payments, and other allowable goods such as a laptop, and for meals and entertainment. On my end of year tax summary from Australia there are 3 figures - 1) Total tax witheld, 2) Gross payments, 3) Reportable fringe benefit amount.

The gross payments do not include the income that was deducted from my salary via the salary sacrifice scheme, although these deductions are detailed on my fortnightly pay slips, and my year to date gross income on my payslips include the value of these deductions. Consequently, the year to date gross income on my last payslip of the tax year, was signifcantly higher than the gross payments detailed on my Australian tax summary.

The tax year in Australia runs from 1st July - 30th June.

My questions:

When declaring my foreign australian income on my UK tax return:

1) Can I declare the income as detailed on my australian tax summary or do I have to declare my income including the income that was deducted as salary sacrifice?
2) If I declare the income as detailed on my australian tax summary, how do I calculate this to fit with the UK tax year of 6th Apr - 5th Apr?
3) If I declare the income as detailed on my australian tax summary, do I need to declare the fringe benefits amount and and what should this be declared as on a UK tax return?

Thanks in advance for your help and advice.

[GlobalTaxAdviser]

Hi

You should be able to split the year into resident and non resident so you may not need to declare your Australian income prior to your arrival into the UK

Any overseas income assuming you are non-UK domiciled will need to be declared on remittance or arising basis

Kind Regards

GTA

[mgp4]

Thanks for responding to my query GTA. I appreciate your time.

However, I am not able to eligible for split year treatment. To be eligible for this I would have needed to remain out of the UK for an entire UK tax year, and thus be counted non-resident for the following UK tax year. Unfortunately, I could not do this and I left in August 2015, and returned in August 2016 and thus will be counted as UK resident for 2015/16 and 2016/17.

Are you able to offer any advice on my original queries about declaring my foreign income?

[mgp4]

Forgot to add that I'm both domiciled and resident in the UK. I'm a UK citizen, I just went away for a 12 months to work in Australia.

[DavidTreitel]

Where were you treaty-resident for this 12 month period?

[mgp4]

I was treaty resident in the UK