SaudiHarry

Hello!

I was really hoping for some advice on on my current situation. I currently live in Saudi Arabia. ( just three months) My company in the UK did not want to lose me and as I work from home in the UK, they have asked me to continue working from home in Saudi Arabia. I am living here because of my partners job. I am not registered as a resident of Saudia Arabia and I am still legally a resident of the UK. I am being paid into a UK bank account and paying all relevant tax's as I normally would. My company has feedback that the arrangement is working well from an operational perspective but they have concerns about whether they are "at risk' as an employer having someone physically working out of Saudi. None of my work is related to Saudi. It is all UK centric. Can anyone give me some advice as to whether my company is putting themselves at any tax liability risk? Many thanks!

Added info

I'm on a tourist visa also
I filled in a P85 form and they said my tax code is 0
Do I pay taxes in Saudi?

doankim

Hi there - I'm in a similar situation where I'm moving to SA for my husband's role. I currently work for a small consulting firm in the UK and they've asked me to continue working out there when I relocate in a few months. Were you able to get any answers on your original questions? Were your taxes impacted as you were in effect a non-resident? Were you still expected to pay the same level of taxes you did before? I would love to continue my UK role but am worried that there are potential blockers. Any feedback would be most appreciated. Thanks

Pulaski

This question comes up fairly frequently across different countries in the BE forums, and the answer is always the same from the UK tax perspective: if you are living and working overseas then you are not liable for UK income tax and should not be paying either UK income tax or UK NI contributions. Therefore you should not be on the UK payroll, as that would automatically require the deduction of UK income tax and the payment of employee's and employer's NI contributions.

On the flip side, this means that you will probably need to register a single person contracting corporation, (though this may not be absolutely necessary - one BE member in the US just bills her clients in the UK personally), then bill your time to your "employer" as in independent contractor. Payments to you should be grossed up to reflect the payment of employer's NI that the employer would be paying if you were working in the UK. What can get more murky is how you register your work and any taxes and payroll charges in the country where you are living, and I know nothing about either work, taxes, or NI-like payroll charges in SA. Where you receive the payments (where the bank account is located) has no impact on where (which country) you are liable for income tax and NI/payroll charges; that is urely a function of where you are located when you are doing the work you're being paid for. .... The only exception to this gneral rule is the recent innovation that a few countries have come up with, of the "digital nomad" visa, which allows you to remain on the payroll in one country while you take an "extended holiday" in another country which doesn't attempt to tax your earned income, but which presumably benefits from the rent and cost of living payments that stimulate the local economy.

The potentially sticky point is that some countries issue "trailing spouse" visas that do not allow work, and there may not be a visa type that allows a trailing spouse to live in that country but do all their work on-line for a corporation in another country. I am sure that some people do that and just "fly under the radar", but in a country where there is a relatively substantial income tax charge, this can lead someone into not just visa violations but also tax fraud charges!

soohienoukri

Hey was there any update on this. Are you still working with the uk company?
I’m in a very similar situation but my uk company didn’t want to take the risk so therefore are making me resign.