| TEAMJBR wrote: |
| .......
If you are a genuine expat with zero ties to the UK and I mean ZERO then this does not concern you you are none resident status and not liable for tax. How and if you work through a UK agency is about if and how you get your gross pay!!....... |
Agree! As a UK ex-pat. Stay out of the UK, have no UK ties (rental/owned property, car,cell phone, bank account, pension etc) work overseas for non UK companies, not through a UK agency, and ex-pats will be fine as TeamJBR suggests above.
Working in/through the UK is another matter
I can't see UK agencies being too comfortable with them using 'self employed' ex-pats (brits or otherwise) working offshore in the UKCS and being paid gross, then leaving (tax unpaid) in case HMRC come after them (the agency) for perceived outstanding taxes. In fact, from what I have read, I don't think agencies can now legally take on self employed people and send them offshore anyway. Pretty sure this came into effect beginning of April 2014.
Whilst I see nothing wrong with the self employed gross pay concept (used that method plenty, and very successfully, as an ex-pat in the past) I sense UK agencies will now err on the side of caution and steer clear of anyone not employed in one form or another, wether it be as an employee of the agency itself, or their appointed umbrella 'employer', or self owned Ltd company. Mostly this means 1 person Ltd co, but there are exceptions to that as (for example) I operate under a 2 person ltd co.
Note. When operating as a limited co working in the UKCS you are expected to carry employers liability insurance to cover you working offshore.
Technically, when outside the 12 mile limit, we are not working in the UK anyway. In theory there should be no need to be employed yet HMRC now pretty much see it this way:
You can no longer appear to be self employed and work offshore in the UKCS. This is the 'false self employment' that HMRC have defined and are clearly trying to stamp out.
I would suggest that HMRC will apply this approach across the board, no matter where the worker resides. In the UK, in the EU or overseas or whatever their tax/residential status may be. In other words.. HMRC can pretty much see it how they want in their patch of the world and take steps to enforce it at a local (UK) level.
One thing to be mindful of. Those ex-pats living outside the UK and currently working the North Sea need to be wary of your regular agency you've been using for years suddenly trying to get you on the books.... if you you are an ex-pat and go PAYE and pay NIC in the UK you will no longer be viewed as an ex-pat by HMRC.
Employers National Insurance Contribution. (aka. that paid by the employer to the government)
The other item mentioned earlier up this thread, is a certain agency offering you an employment contract and then suggesting they will have to deduct the employers NIC (roughly 18%) from your agreed rate. As an employee you would already be liable to pay the employees National Insurance contribution which would be deducted at source. There is no way you should be paying the 18% employers contribution as well! You'd be on a huge hit on take home pay! Plus I don't think an employer can legally deduct the employers contribution from your agreed rate anyway. The name 'employers contribution' is a clue!
To sort this out the agencies likely need to go back to their client and re-negotiate the rate so that they legally pay the employers contribution out of their margin. Deducting the employers National Insurance contribution from the employees agreed rate is not the way forward!
Can't see many (if any) clients agreeing to that.
A number of agencies must be fretting a good bit over this, as they did not expect it to come into force until April 2015!!