Living in france working in UK ish

jilt

I have a client who is a self employed philosophy consultant.

She has a home in the UK which at the moment she spends about 2 weeks per month at and a rented property in France where she spends the rest of her time. She rents out part of her UK home. She does freelance work for a UK company and undertakes a lot of that work over in france working from home.

Said UK company have now offered her PAYE employment but she would still continue to work from home, both here and France as they have closed their London office.

At present her address for HMRC purposes is still her London address and she will be filing an SA100. Is everything ok with this? Does it make any difference that she undertakes some of the work from her home in france?

Her initial reason for taking the flat in France was to spend more time over in France rather than the UK. She is wondering whether to set up as a freelance in France but still undertake some work for UK companies and get paid in Euros (she has a french bank accounts also).

This is not something I have experience in, I know that if she was resident in France she would have to declare any UK income on her french tax return and offset the UK paid tax from her french taxes under the terms of the Anglo-French tax treaty, and that she would have to pay UK NI for 1 year after departing the Uk unless she was paying the french equivalent and could then claim relief under the Anglo-French reciprocal arrangements.

If things were to stay as they are now how much time would she have to spend in the UK, is it 183 days?

Does anyone have any information about setting up as a self employed consultant in France?

I have told her that I will obtain any information I can but that it is not my field and she really needs to talk to an expert. Saying that I'd like to help her a little if I can, no charge of course, and am interested to find out for myself so if anyone could help in anyway or has any comments it would be much appreciated.

stevo5678

I think it depends on residency. If she is deemed UK resident then she is is taxed on all her 'world wide' income. If not resident then tax will only be on UK income for the purposes of her tax return.

I think if you're in the UK for 183 days then you are UK res. 2 weeks PM x 12 momths = 24wks x 7 days = 168 days. I don't think she will be UK res so should only declare UK income on UK tax return.

So employment income from the UK company and the UK rental income will need to go on her UK return.

The work she is doing from home will be just part of her UK employment income (if she goes employed).

I have to admit I'm not sure how it should work if she is doing it freelance IE does the UK earned income need to go onto the UK tax return (and claim double taxation relief on it re tax deducted in france).