Oliver Heslop from Global Expatriate Tax Services (GETS), the official Expat Focus UK Taxation partner, discusses the UK tax system for American expats moving to the United Kingdom.
Hi there. This is my pub quiz for American expats who’ve just arrived in the UK. A few pointers on UK tax that’ll help you when you’re getting set up.
My first question to you would be, should you file a UK tax return in the UK? And the answer is yes, you should. You’ll be treated as a non domicile most likely. There’ll be tax relief there for you that I couldn’t claim as a Brit, so you should definitely claim through the UK tax return system.
Now the next question is, what is our tax year end? Now that is the 5th of April, not 31st December, as you are accustomed to. It’s down to our use of the Julian calendar. But don’t ask me any more than that. I can’t explain it beyond that.
Final question is, how would you be taxed in the UK? Let’s think about this. So you’re gonna have 0% on the first £13,000, then up to £50,000 you’re gonna be taxed at 20%. And above that you’re gonna be taxed at 40%. There are higher rates than that, but we won’t get into them today.