Resident in EU; consulting in UK.

[tiktoktor]

Hi All.

I recently sold my home, closed my Ltd and moved from the UK to a mainland EU country. I now have an opportunity to do some more work in the UK and it occurred to me that it might more efficient to operate via a Gibraltar based Ltd.

Does anyone have any experiences / thoughts or can someone refer me to an knowledgeable accountant who can advice me?

Thanks.

[SueEllen]

Don't bother trying.

UK agencies are risk adverse and will not consider anyone using a foreign limited in case they get lumbered with your tax bill.

Some direct clients would consider you but unless you have a good network then you will find yourself using agencies.

[BlasterBates]

The answer is no you can't. If you are going to do contracts in the UK you need to register in the UK. That applies to any country. Effectively if you are carrying out work in a country i.e. sitting there programming something it becomes a permanent establishment and is subject to VAT and income tax. The 183 day rule on personal taxation doesn't count. There are probably time limitations, which may indeed be be as long as 183 days or even longer, but you would have to find out. Having read around it seems these limitations are dependent on the type of business, and can be as short as 3 months or as much as 12 months for a construction site.

You would have to be an international tax expert to know what the exceptions were and avoid tax, and the vast majority of accountants wouldn't know. I would point out that there are indeed exceptions to the general rule.

What would work is, if you worked mainly from your home or an office in Gibralter. Then you can pop over for business trips.

Here is the definition of a Permanent Establishment:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/intmanual/INTM264050.htm

As you can see it extremely woolly and would be hard to exclude yourself based on that description without some expert to interpret it, and note that there is no mention of 183 days.