wellinever

If you find anyone that can give you good advice on all of this I would appreciate knowing them. I have tried many firms (not just local people in both countries) of a simple way to change main residence to a PT house (cause that is where the most CG is), one of them given the details (not unlike yours) quoted me £5-£7K to give their advice....

appman999

My address in AT is and always has been my UK address and I don't consider I ever met the requirements for tax residence in Portugal.
The process is not difficult to understand if I wished to simply move to Portugal.
My issues are caused by me wanting to split my year between the UK and Portugal and being tax resident in both. (Where have I seen this cakeism before?)
Changing your main residence to a PT house is theoretically simple providing you meet the requirements. see https://www.gov.uk/tax-sell-home/nominating-a-home?

GrahamF

We are tax resident in UK. My wife has dual citizenship and I have permanent residence, neither of us has ever worked in Portugal or had any chargeable income there. Some years ago when we had to visit finances about property purchase, we asked the question about submitting returns and were surprised to be told not to bother unless at some point we had income/bank interest etc.to declare. We both have NIF no's and registered on portal but never been asked to file a return. Obviously we will have to pay CGT if/when we sell the property.

appman999

I assume the permanent residence you refer to is in Portugal?
I presume your wife has dual Portuguese/UK citizenship?
Do you stay in Portugal more than 183 days a year?

GrahamF

Sorry, maybe I didn't make it very clear, Yes, I have permanent residence in Portugal, my wife is Portuguese but also has had UK citizenship for 50+ years, since retirement we spend roughly equal time in UK and Portugal over several visits each year.

Edit. Thinking about our movements, we actually spend quite a bit less time in Portugal as we're often sailing down to SW Spain, Gib, Morocco.

wellinever

so does that mean that you have zero income, from any source??

GrahamF

No. As I said, we are UK tax resident (main home) and only income is from UK pensions and savings interest.

appman999

I guess you are both in the lucky position of not having to worry about the Schengen restrictions or have a minimum stay requirement !
However as I'm sure you know if you spend more than 183 days a year in Portugal you are considered to be tax resident and should do a tax return on your worldwide income.
This is the position I will be in later this year, but like you will still be considered a tax resident of the UK.
The UK/Portugal double taxation convention when you are tax resident in both countries indicates we are tax resident in the UK so should only do a Portuguese tax return for income/gain arising in Portugal.
This is what you are doing but I'm trying to get formal confirmation of this.

wellinever

Graham, so it sounds like you are not a resident of PT, but the owner of a second home in PT, bought as an Estrangeiro, with your Tax portal address as your UK address.
If so then no you dont need to file a tax return in PT unless you earned money from say renting the PT house out or whatever.
But Appmans case is different, in that he intends to take out residency so he can stay in PT longer than 90 days at a stretch (Schengen Rules)
In which case regardless of how many days you spend in PT you are obliged to file a tax return in PT, because you are PT
resident and property owner.
What you do in UK about tax is really of no concern to PT taxman

wellinever

Again not sure this is so simple...on face of it yes it is. But my guess is that is so if you have 2 homes in UK. The minute you tell HMRC that your main home is in a foreign country, with your address, my guess is that HMRC then makes contact with tax authority in that country. I would love to corrected on that...there is an HMRC online form p85, you could take a look at.
HMRC is trying to stop loopholes where UK citizens take out short term overseas residency to avoid UK CGT.

GrahamF

No, our tax portal address is Portugal. UK think we live here, Portugal think we live there. The whole situation is chaotic and quite amusing. My wife's citizen card and other Portuguese documents are still in her maiden name and since Brexit she can't travel on those. If she obtains a Portuguese passport, she would appear to be a visitor to UK. Her UK passport used for travel is in her married name and she doesn't have Portuguese residence in that name so doesn't qualify for driving license exchange or obtain a Portuguese one without taking a test! It does make life interesting with officialdom, trying to remember which name was used for what. We've been thinking about updating her paperwork name for 52 years but, never quite got around to it.

appman999

Why would you worry even if HMRC did contact the tax authority in Portugal? The discussion is not to avoid paying tax but pay the right tax in the right place.
P85 is not relevant to this discussion as my whole point is that I'm not leaving the UK and I'm also not seeking tax relief or repayment of tax.
Like GrahamF I'm splitting my time between the two countries. The minimum stay requirement of my temporary visa means I must become tax resident as well (GrahamF doesn't have to but might if he stays more than 183 days)

appman999

I assume you are writing this in the UK?
You certainly have an interesting situation although if Portugal think you live there and your AT address supports that, I would think they would expect a Portuguese tax return declaring your worldwide income?
Your wife seems to have covered all the documentation bases for the best outcome in any situation.

wellinever

And I thought my situation was complicated.!!
Like a lot of people I suspect, who, like you and me, own properties in both UK and elsewhere in the EU.
And whilst in the EU, very often Brits were never challenged at borders, and stayed more than 90 days without registering presence in that country, and had homes registered as Strangers, so not tax implications on the face of it.
But of course Brexit changed all of that for those that continued to want to be in the EU country for more than 90 days at a time.
Taking out residency was one way of doing just that.
But as we all know that comes with other obligations, as in registering for tax, changing driving license, changing the registered address of the property ownership.

So on that topic, how do you go about driving in PT? Did you change your UK DL to PT one?

GrahamF

Yes, that's confusing as well. I'm "here" at the moment but in two weeks will be "there" and "there" will become "here". Don't know how I'll cope when dementia takes over