Working remotely overseas through UK limited company for UK client

[contractor82]

Thanks for all the replies.

I am not keeping my UK company to be tax efficient. I am keeping it because I want to keep working with UK clients as much as possible (as what I do is very specialist and in high demand in the UK, with a well established contracting market and lots of clients that are used to working with contractors).

Working remotely overseas is already a bit of a stretch, so I want to keep things smoother as much as possible for UK clients - I don't want them to have to go through any extra hassle by having to deal with a non-UK company. From the perspective of my limited company and the client company, its one UK company offering services to another.

It's only me as a person who will be residing in a different country, so I expect this to matter only for my personal tax situation.


So the questions are:
- Does the country I am residing affect in any way the situation of my UK company? I am assuming not.

- Does the salary and dividend I am paying myself count as UK income? I am pretty sure it does.

- Will I need to pay income and dividend tax that is UK income to the HMRC even if I am not UK tax resident? I believe so in this case.

- Will this offset my tax liability in my country of residence via the double taxation agreement? I sure hope so, because I wouldn't want to be paying even more tax than my UK tax bill...

[NotAllThere]

Why are you so coy? Why not just tell us which country? That way you might get some answers from people with experience there. Different countries have different tax systems. Ergo, any answers here can only be couched in probablistic terms.

- Does the country I am residing affect in any way the situation of my UK company? I am assuming not.
Probably not.

- Does the salary and dividend I am paying myself count as UK income? I am pretty sure it does.
If you are not resident in the UK and not working in the UK, then any money you earn from a UK company is not subject to UK tax or NI .However, in your host country, you may have to account for the social contributions, and you will be taxed on your salary, which your company will pay you gross.

- Will I need to pay income and dividend tax that is UK income to the HMRC even if I am not UK tax resident? I believe so in this case.
No. "If you are not resident in the UK and not working in the UK, then any money you earn from a UK company is not subject to UK tax or NI "

- Will this offset my tax liability in my country of residence via the double taxation agreement? I sure hope so, because I wouldn't want to be paying even more tax than my UK tax bill..
If you have any UK liability, and there is a double taxation treaty, then you won't pay much more tax than in the UK. It might end up more, since things like expenses are treated differently according to taxation authority.

Unless you are physically working in the UK, you do not need a UK company. If you are, it gets more complicated. Depending on your host country, it might be better to set up a company there which receives fees from the UK company, from which you pay your salary (and which pays your social contributions).

Simplest: work for your UK clients remotely through a host country company. If you work in the UK, not just a few sales/business meetings, work through your UK company.