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Where Taxpayers and Advisers Meet

UK resident / US citizen going abroad to work

AnthonyF
Posts:10
Joined:Wed Aug 06, 2008 3:13 pm
UK resident / US citizen going abroad to work

Postby AnthonyF » Mon Feb 14, 2022 3:49 pm

My wife is a US citizen and will be going to work in Qatar (hopefully before April 6th) for at least 2 years. She currently lives in UK with me, her retired UK citizen husband, and we are both UK resident.

Will the SRT rules apply equally to her as a US citizen in the next tax year or are there some other considerations?

darthblingbling
Posts:698
Joined:Wed Aug 02, 2017 9:09 pm

Re: UK resident / US citizen going abroad to work

Postby darthblingbling » Mon Feb 14, 2022 3:59 pm

SRT yes, at least for UK tax residence purposes. Depending on her circumstances may very well be non UK tax resident throughout the 2 year period. You would need to thoroughly consider the SRT and how it will apply in your wife's case.

US have their own rules and as your wife may already be aware that US citizens are effectively deemed to be permanent tax residents of the US. As such there will likely be tax implications in the US for her to consider.

AnthonyF
Posts:10
Joined:Wed Aug 06, 2008 3:13 pm

Re: UK resident / US citizen going abroad to work

Postby AnthonyF » Mon Feb 14, 2022 5:07 pm

Thanks for the response, that is helpful. My wife is a long-time resident of UK and has build up a considerable tax credit with US, so we are hoping that will resuce her US tax liability considerably.

As a further query, my wife owns 98% and is director of a UK-registered company. Currently she is not employed by the company and receives no remuneration or dividends, so my understanding is that this will not be taken into account when calculating working hours / days for the SRT. Are there any other implications, though?

Also, if she does start receiving remuneration as an employee (if the company starts turning a profit), and if she performs all of the work while in Qatar, my understanding of the SRT rules is that work is deemed as overseas hours / days. Is this a reasonable assumption, or am I being naive?

AGoodman
Posts:1738
Joined:Fri May 16, 2014 3:47 pm

Re: UK resident / US citizen going abroad to work

Postby AGoodman » Fri Feb 18, 2022 12:28 pm

Just nb: I don't believe that "Work" for SRT purposes has to be paid work (at least for the sufficient ties test). Volunteering doesn't count as full time work abroad for the Third Automatic Overseas test but I don't think working unpaid for your own company counts as volunteering. Working in Qatar for her UK company may therefore count for the 3rd test - assuming it is increasing her wealth in some way.


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