Offshore Banks

[Ray Shields]

Ray,

What about the tax laws for the UK citizens holding a seamans book, working out of the country for 180 days, and for guys not working on rigs as well as divers??

The Seafarers Foreign Earnings Deduction, if you are entitled to it, means you can claim back all UK tax paid.

Note this is not the same as not paying tax! You still have to pay the tax, but then you can claim it back.

Dog, will have a look at that site ta. I assume when talking about "raising invoices" you are meaning you are a limited company or self employed. I did say in my message that I was talking about employees. There are vast ranges of rules depending on how and who you work for as well as which country.

We have a vast mixture of Agency, salary, self employed and limited company people on here from many different parts of the world, so its quite difficult to talk about tax and who pays what with such a combination.

[engineer21]

hello

so far as im aware ray your not quite right with that last post as you say you have too pay the tax and claim it back.

well i currently get paid tax free and therefor pay no tax untill i have too ie i fail too meet the seamans deductions rule, so far has not happend.

but if i do fail i just pay the tax at the end of my tax year.

[Savante]

eng, tis good that you keep a nest egg set aside for the random tax intervention, but I have to pay my tax and then claim it back after a month or so. HMRC are supposed to pay quickly, but last month they audited me and asked me for copies of tickets of my flights and also stamped ships logs of my positions. Added some stress to my last job.

I worked on frigg/odin twice last year and they went to the days I was on the west and on the east side of the platform (UKCS and NS)-now that was scary – having to rely on a single piece of printed paper with a ships stamp on it to save you thousands of pounds??

In the words of William Shakespear; "I bite my thumb at them!"

[engineer21]

hi,
yeah i guess ur rite looks like mine is coming down too a few days ie if the ship should go into uk sooner than expected!

so how do u get these stamped ships log? because our guys have no idea what the uk goverment wants currently they get a printed preformace record of the ships movements but doesnt include positions or anything just feild names!

do the goverment just randomly check ur stuff? if they find sumthing wrong do u get fined or just have too pay?

a lot of guys here talk about strecting the truth is it worth it tho!!

[Ray Shields]

hello

so far as im aware ray your not quite right with that last post as you say you have too pay the tax and claim it back.

well i currently get paid tax free and therefor pay no tax untill i have too ie i fail too meet the seamans deductions rule, so far has not happend.

but if i do fail i just pay the tax at the end of my tax year.

If you are not paying tax each month then I assume you are not an employee of a company, and I thought only employees could claim the Foreign Earnings deduction. If you are being paid gross then are you Agency, or non UK resident? The rules seem to be varied depending on the mood of the whichever taxman you speak to at the time – which is a problem when someone else reads it a few years later and then decides different!

[rovpilot]

become non resident, pay no tax or NI. and you can pay into offshore account without letting the taxman know your interest.
Am i correct?

[Ray Shields]

become non resident, pay no tax or NI. and you can pay into offshore account without letting the taxman know your interest.
Am i correct?

there are epats on here who will have good advice, but yes if you had UK expat status, you would not have to pay UK tax – NI I am not so sure of. If you still worked as an employee of a UK company I think you probably would still have to. You would have to be self employed or paid via an overseas branch to avoid.

Remember though that you may be liable to pay tax in whatever country you are living in. You may be expat UK which exempts you UK tax, but not necessarily anyone elses! Although a lot of people get away with not paying tax to anyone, its not always done legally.

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

Well I looked into all this a lot when I went out to the Middle East to work this year. basically, there are 2 ways to avoid tax. 183 days using the Seafarers Exemption rules, i.e. more time away than at home(putting it simply), and the 272 rule, which is less than 93 days living in this country. All sounded great at the time, but in reality, became so much hassle that I ended up onshore anyway doing PAYE. Taxman does his bit, I get the rest. B****rd. 😥

[engineer21]

Yeah well like you say there seems too be no hard and fast rule as too what you should pay when hence why i have my accountant doing most of the work!! no one appears too be able too give me straight information! the taxman was bloody useless!!
same as for National insurance i foned them and asked what was the deal and they said nothing haha, so judgeing by our current pension scheme i dnt even bother with ni now!

yeah u say you have too be an employee too get tax exempt but employees of fugro are payed thru Paye therefore they have too pay tax? i really dnt know so much on this subject !!

[Author]

Posts