Taking Stock: Fondness for food could cost you tax breaks
When becoming non-domiciled, ensure you loose all emotional ties with the UK to avoid subsequent tax enquiries
TS HAS ALWAYS loved its grub, and even on our more extravagant holidays, the hankering for Mum and Dad’s home-cooked roasts is never far away.
It was with some delight and little surprise, then, that TS learned of a tax tribunal between the Glyns and HMRC.
Y’see, the Glyns had moved to Monaco (pictured) after selling off their rather successful property portfolio in 2005, seeing Mr Glyn pick up a rather tidy £29m dividend, having carefully managed the holdings’ affairs for more than 30 years, the Telegraph reports.
Naturally, the taxman’s interest was piqued, and quickly calculated £5.5m was due for the transaction, citing the couple’s penchant to return to London for home-cooked meals with family and friends as a cause to claim their UK residency.
The couple’s “hearts”, HMRC said, “remained in London”.
Making its case, HMRC said Mrs Glyn had only reluctantly given up her role as Chairman of Jewish charity – the Women’s International Zionist Organisation – and had had “mixed feelings” about leaving her home. Their regular visits, it said, showed that, emotionally, they had never left.
However, Judge Nowlan said the couple had bought two luxury flats in Monaco and, although Mr Glyn returned to Britain 22 times in the 2005/06 tax year, he had religiously kept well below the 90-day limit for overseas residency.
Nowlan added the couple had made a “distinct break” with the UK, and eventually ruled in their favour.
Friday night dinners, he held, are a key element of Jewish culture.
He added: “It seems odd to suppose that sustaining Mr Glyn’s claim to have become non-UK resident should require that the invariable Jewish tradition should be abandoned or artificially restricted”.