NedG

Hi all. My thrilling first post to BE is a question regarding everyone's favourite subject: Tax.

I moved to the US in December 2014 and I am now compiling my 14/15 UK return in TaxCalc (thanks to the recommendations on BE and elsewhere). I'll be filing it as a split year.

I'll be reporting my foreign income and the tax I paid on it in the US. So my question is this: should the "foreign tax" include only the US tax I have actually filed a return for (i.e. from December 14) or should I also report the withholdings on my US income for the first three months of 2015?

There is some useful advice here: https://www.gov.uk/tax-foreign-income/taxed-twice. It describes two cases "If you’ve already paid tax on your foreign income" and "If you haven’t paid tax on the foreign income". However, I'm unclear whether witholdings count as "paying tax" for these purposes.

Naturally I'm aware that I ought to get some professional advice if I want a definitive answer. Any pointers you might be able to give would be very gratefully received, though!

nun

If you qualify for a UK split tax year why are you filing a self assessment and including foreign income? If you are working in the US that income won't be UK taxable.

NedG

Interesting. I was just naively answering the questions in tax calc. I guess I should go back to the HMRC split year information and read a bit more carefully.

nun

Yeah if you qualify for split tax year treatment you just pay UK tax on your income when you were resident in the UK....and a lot of that should already have been done through PAYE and withholding at source. Make sure you file a P85 with HMRC.

The US also has the same concept if a part year resident so you just have to include income and financial gains you get after you moved to the US.

tbm

Make sure to read about the Statutory Residence Test, see https://www.gov.uk/government/public...dence-test-srt

tbm

Note that you only have to file a P86 or a Self Assessment return, not both. It sounds like NedG was going to go for the latter.

You should get a tax refund since you always get the full personal allowance (it's not apportioned).

Make sure to read about the Statutory Residence Test since some cases require daily record keeping.

In addition to the P86/Self Assessment, you may want to look into 1) voluntary NI contributions and b) personal pension payments.

nun

All good advice, but making payments to a UK pension while in the US would be low on my list of things to do. If you have earned income there are plenty of US opportunities to make tax deferred payments into retirement accounts.