International Emigrating – a taxing challenge
“ We wake up every morning to a view of the Weisshorn. It’s just magnificent. Walk a few minutes just up above our apartment and we can see 11 snow- covered peaks, each over 4,000 metres. We can ski from Zermatt into Italy for spaghetti and drive an hour or so to the market in Chamonix for French cheese!”
It sounds like a holiday postcard, but Rosemary Clifton is describing her idyllic new life in the Swiss Alps resort of Crans-Montana.
Rosemary and her husband Richard, a retired businessman, bought their three-bedroom apartment 33 years ago for family holidays, but two years ago they moved into it permanently. Their old home in Esher, Surrey, is rented out, and they have no plans to return.
Sipping a cappuccino in a Tuscan piazza, sunbathing on a Gold Coast beach or
admiring the view from a favourite mountain slope – many of us have had that holiday experience, dreaming how life might be if we quit the UK and moved permanently abroad.
Few go as far as the Cliftons and fulfil that dream. But modern communications – email, Skype and the internet – and an increasingly globalised economy mean that may well change. It is easier than ever to uproot and settle in another country.
For some the draw will be lifestyle. For others it will be the thought of better
weather. For many the financial benefits of a more generous tax regime will be the key factor.
On the latest data available, HMRC says around 200,000 individuals self-assess as not resident in the UK for tax purposes. Many thousands more non-residents do not enter the UK’s self-assessment system.
Deutsche Bank Private Wealth Management UK’s Head of International Wealth Planning, Isabelle Mulroy, has lived abroad herself and has known many