Residence and Domicile: Guidance on the new tax rules

Finance Act 2008 changes

The Finance Act 2008 made a number of changes to the remittance basis tax rules and some changes to the tax residence rules. The changes can be found in sections 24 and 25 and Schedule 7 of the Finance Act 2008 (PDF 1.6MB). A brief summary of the changes is available.

Guidance on the new rules introduced by the Finance Act 2008

We have produced some new, and some replacement, guidance which reflects the 2008 Finance Act changes and other recent changes. Some wholly new guidance is being issued in some areas, such as domicile, to help people correctly self-assess their tax liability.

We have also announced some changes to our operational procedures as explained in the Revenue & Customs Brief 17/09 published on 25 March 2009.

Most of the guidance will initially be published here but over the coming months it will be incorporated into existing guidance manuals, as appropriate. This page also provides links to guidance published elsewhere.

We will be introducing two new guidance manuals, the 'Residence, Domicile and Remittances' manual and the 'Transfer of Assets' manual:

  • The new guidance on the remittance basis forms part of the Residence, Domicile and Remittances manual. The new guidance on domicile will also be moved to that manual in autumn 2009. We will be providing additional technical guidance on residence for incorporation in the new manual later this year.
  • The new guidance on the application of the remittance basis to the Transfer of Assets legislation will be moved to the new Transfer of Assets manual when it is published later this year.

Some interim guidance has been made available already, mostly in the form of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) (most of which have now been withdrawn) and the explanatory notes for Schedule 7 Finance Act 2008. These are being incorporated in the new permanent guidance as appropriate.

The following guidance is already available:

We are continuing to develop and add to this guidance and have asked stakeholders and other interested parties to let us have feedback on how useable and helpful they find the guidance to be. We have incorporated into the new The Residence, Domicile & the Remittance Basis guidance (HMRC6) many of the comments we received after we asked for views on the replacement guidance for IR20. A short summary of the feedback (PDF 18K) is available.

The old IR20 guidance will be withdrawn and so any practices associated with it will not apply from 6 April 2009. However to help those dealing with years prior to 2009-10 a copy of the old IR20 is still available (PDF 391K).

Changes to the remittance basis rules in the Finance Bill 2009

At the Budget on 22 April 2009, it was announced further changes were being made to some of the rules in this area and these have now been published as clauses 51 and 52 and Schedule 27 of the Finance Act which is available here:

clauses 51 and 52 and Schedule 27 of the Finance Act

Our guidance will be updated to reflect these changes once the Bill becomes law. In the meantime, we have produced a series of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs ) which provide more detail.