Opting for non-dom status brings tax advantages but what are the implications for mixed domicile marriages where one partner is liable for UK tax? Mark Davies, partner at Mark Davies & Associates, looks at the options
The recent squabble over the tax status of Akshata Murty, the wife of the Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, resulted in the question ‘did the Chancellor “benefit” from her foreign domicile?’.
It is a common tax planning technique for a husband and wife to arrange their affairs to pay the least amount of tax. And it is increasingly common for one spouse to have a foreign domicile and therefore it is a reasonable question to ask whether ‘mixed domicile’ marriages give tax planning opportunities (and pitfalls)?
As a foreign domiciliary tax resident in the UK Murty can elect to pay UK tax either on her worldwide income or gains, or on the remittance basis. If she elects for the remittance basis, she pays tax on UK sources of income and gains and on foreign sources of income and gains, but only to the extent that they are remitted to the UK.
