I always knew we were right....

[SueEllen]

That was the impression I got though they may have been happy enough with any company in the UK. I know some people who live in Scotland who have companies registered in England to avoid incorporating a company under Scots law. Does anyone here have a UK company which is registered somewhere which NOT England and Wales?

Personally, I'd be cautious because of the potential difficulty of dealing with companies which operate under different legal systems.

There is absolutely no difficulty as you simply state in the contract what legal system the contract falls under.

My contracts all state that the laws of England apply. This gets around any laws that the Welsh Assembly Government could put in which would effect the contract.

How do you think organisations do cross border trade?

I would guess that it depends on if he is in the UK for long enough to become resident here for tax purposes. If he is and a client/agency is paying an IOM company there is the risk that at some time in the future HMRC could come after the client/agency for PAYE/NI from the contractor's earnings and they won't want to carry that risk.

If he works in mainland UK for most of the year for many years then he cannot get out of pretending he is not tax resident regardless of whether he spends the weekend in a different tax jurisdiction.

[borderreiver]

That was the impression I got though they may have been happy enough with any company in the UK. I know some people who live in Scotland who have companies registered in England to avoid incorporating a company under Scots law. Does anyone here have a UK company which is registered somewhere which NOT England and Wales?

Personally, I'd be cautious because of the potential difficulty of dealing with companies which operate under different legal systems.

I understand what you mean, but that's just crazy TBH. I assume none of the (English) agents you mention would ever consider doing business with RBS, then?

As someone else just said, the contract just needs to state whose legal jurisdiction applies. Simple ;-)

[jamesbrown]

Minor point, but there's a difference between legal jurisdiction (where a case would be heard) and governing law (which legal system applies). It's routine to have both specified in the contract when dealing with international clients.