Expatriate Tax Services London Ltd

Expat Focus Mental Health Update July 2022 - Expat Focus There’s been quite a bit in the press recently about burnout among expats – a perennial problem but exacerbated by the pandemic and its pressures. Recent surveys have revealed that expat stress and corresponding burnout are at an ‘all-time high.’ Isolation, job loss, insecurity and the long-...

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Expatriate Tax Services London Ltd på Google COVID'S IMPACT ON TAX My stories today focus on expatriate tax as opposed to vaccines for example or new viruses. In other words, most expatriates have suffered many different Covid inconveniences, but today’s spotlight will be on tax. There is very good news at the end, if you want to skip. I am ...

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Expatriate Tax Services London Ltd på Google Covid - any TAX BENEFITS please ? Question : have we seen any UK tax benefits or UK advantages triggered by Covid in 2020, 2021 ? We did not witness many clients on furlough, but we observed many expats of course retreating to their home offices and continuing to work full-time. For the self-employe...

GLOSSARY - TAX

THE BASICS
US CPA – UK accountants will list these as their qualifications : ICAEW or CTA or ATT or all three.

IRS – the British equivalent is HMRC or Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs.

US Citizenship and Immigration – UK Visas and Immigration department.

US Calendar tax year – UK income tax year ends on 5 April of each year (yes, and this is quite rare).

US social security number – UK National Insurance number.

Tax planning – same word, and at my firm we have a strong list of expat tax reliefs available. Sorry, what a shameless plug !

expatriate tax
THE TAX RETURNS

US Federal tax return – in UK, expatriates and UK nationals must file UK self-assessment tax returns.

April 15 US filing deadline – UK filing deadline is 31 January each year.

State tax return – no real UK equivalent.

Joint filing/Joint Assessment – not applicable in UK.

US ITIN – UK “UTR”.

ZIP code – post code.

Bank checking account – current account.

E-filing – online filing or e-filing.

KEY TAX PHRASES FOR AMERICANS

Picture this common scenario.
An American moves to the UK for 2, 3, 5+ years and upon arrival suddenly she has to learn British English, for business and private life. How might she begin ?

Of course, this can be a very fun challenge, but a little daunting. You will see this article is not about diapers versus nappies (UK), or horseriding (UK) versus horseback riding. Instead, we are keen to share some standard UK tax words with you.

Please also note, there are plenty of solid tax advisors (like me, Oliver) who can support you in the learning process, but you can always get a foothold in the language. Here are two key phrases that will appear very early on. First, CPA is not a term we use in the UK for advisors ( instead, we use tax advisor ATT, CTA; these are more commonplace). Second, the UK does not use the IRS to collect or assess taxes, instead HM Revenue & Customs fulfil this role.

See the next post for the glossary

We have prepared below an expat tax glossary for Americans arriving to live in the UK. Our firm’s full list of items is quite a bit longer than this list below. However, we know that there is no point in sending out hundreds of new British words, when you just need the headlines or “the skinny” in brief.