UK resident contracting in EU

[uffe]

I am a UK resident who has been contracting in the UK through an umbrella company.

I am about to take on a contract in the EU and was looking for some advise.

The client is based in France, but my contract would be with a Dutch company (this is who I will invoice, their contract is with the client).

I will be working partly on site in France and partly from home.

I am struggling to find consistent information about where I am liable for taxes and whether I should set up a UK LTD company.

Can anyone recommend a good UK accountant I could contact to start going through this?

Thanks.

[Martin at NixonWilliams]

I am a UK resident who has been contracting in the UK through an umbrella company.

I am about to take on a contract in the EU and was looking for some advise.

The client is based in France, but my contract would be with a Dutch company (this is who I will invoice, their contract is with the client).

I will be working partly on site in France and partly from home.

I am struggling to find consistent information about where I am liable for taxes and whether I should set up a UK LTD company.

Can anyone recommend a good UK accountant I could contact to start going through this?

Thanks.

I gather from your post that you are resident and ordinarily resident in the UK. I assume you are also domiciled in the UK. As a result you will be liabile for tax on your worldwide income.

In terms of French tax you may be liabile for tax there too, but this depends on their rules. In my experience, the shorter the term of the contract, the less likely you will be subject to tax in the foreign country.

Assuming their rules are similar to ours in terms of residency, it will be difficult for you to determine your position from the outset as you do not know how much work will be performed there and how much will be performed in the UK.

Remember that it is possible to be resident in more than one country. You may have to pay tax on the same income twice however you will receive relief at the lower of the two tax rates paid when completing your UK tax return.

I would reccommend that you speak with an accountant who specialises in foreign taxes in order to optimise your position from the beginning.

I hope this helps.

Martin

[borderreiver]

These guys might help. I forget where I have the link from - BlasterBates is usually good for advice on this kind of thing. No idea how much they might cost though - I suspect this kind of specialist advice is not cheap.

[BlasterBates]

Good advice above.

General rule is you pay tax where you work, so you work in the UK and France you have a tax liability in both countries. It might be possible to restrict your visits to France to a few days a month they would probably just count as business trips, but if you're spending weeks at a time in France then you most likely will have a tax liability.

Really you cannot avoid seeking advice from a UK and a French accountant. The tax authorities are increasingly clamping down on cross border workers, so you really need to make sure you are compliant.

It does appear from reading around that 3 months seems to be a common threshold which brings the wrath of the tax man down on you.

[SueEllen]

France is actually quite strict on contractors paying tax so as everyone has said to sleep safely at night you need to sort your tax position out from the beginning.