EVER THOUGHT OF EMIGRATING FROM THE UK / BECOMING A TAX EXILE?
Some European States are very keen to be paid your taxes. Many offer smoke and mirror incentives. Others offer real incentives. Once you’re in-mainland Europe, in reality you can live where you want. The great exodus is on. We know this because, we have done it and its great.
Keep Calm and Carry on Abroad can facilitate the following:
- European residency in two very easy steps
- Through our tax advisors: pay sub 28% flat tax on worldwide income (across wages, CGT, dividends, pension income and employee social security payments in your new tax domicile).
- KPMG’s model, based on $100K income from wages, states that if you make use of all deductions and incentives, including housing, cars and school fees etc. you would pay less than 10% income tax.
- Reclaim past income tax from 24/25 and 25/26 (involves investment risk).
- Live anywhere in mainland Europe.
- Settlement facilitation in one European domicile (including direct and ongoing support; sales or rental, bins, tax IDs, electricity, internet, car arrangements etc.).
- No property purchases necessary, unlike many programmes.
- Schools for the children / introductions to fellow UK tax exiles / naturalisation.
- Inheritance tax, once you become a citizen and get a passport, is below 20%.
- Keep Calm has been working on this solution since 2020. Read on
I followed the exact path that Keep Calm recommended and now live happily in Spain. We rented a 871M2 villa with large pool for 3k a month and the kid’s at a wonderful private school for €900 per month.
I am losing weight and my health and outlook on life has improved massively . I have also started to make rather a lot of money. Most importantly, we are really happy, and the kid loves the school, which means mum is over the moon.
If I could offer one piece of advice it would be to work out your priorities in terms of where you want to live. For us it all came down to the school for the kid, which could have saved me driving 3000 km in February.
Bucky BeLucky – UK Tax Exile
DECIDING TO
LEAVE THE UK
“Everything we recommend, we have done already ourselves”, Keep Calm Founder.
Our process is simple: work out under what terms you can become non-resident in the UK, gain European Residency, settle somewhere in mainland Europe and make a few changes so the UK isn’t able to tax you that much on your Uk income.
In terms of becoming a UK Non-Resident, you cannot spend more than 90 days a year in the UK. HMRC may still try and charge you tax on pension, rental income, savings interest and wages. However, either we can get you a HMRC NT tax code (No Tax), which some of our clients have got or there are legal work arounds which are easy to arrange. At worst you will end up dropping a few tax bands and filing a very unsubstantial tax return every year in the UK. HMRC and the government make it scarier than it is. You are just emigrating, that’s all.
Here is a link to HMRC’s UK Residency Test. Have a read, go to the bottom of the page and click start. You can have as many tries as you like: https://www.gov.uk/tax-foreign-income/residence.
If you are worried about missing family and friends, please think how often you see them and how much money you could make J or save by having them stay at your villa every Christmas, Easter and summer holidays or even on some weekends.
LEAVING AND
SETTLING
In terms of gaining European residency, we first need to gather some information from you. You’ll need international health insurance — for example, individual cover can be around €62 per month (me), and full cover (including dental and optical) about €155 per month (mum and kid).
Next, we accompany you to your tax-friendly jurisdiction. We meet our immigration lawyer, Dr. Nookie, hence, our brand name, head to the immigration office, go straight to the front of the queue, submit your passport and photo, take your biomeds and within 21 days you’ll receive your European Residency Card.
By this stage, you’ll usually have an idea of where you want to live. We will sort you a place in your tax residency. Then you need to sort your holiday home anywhere in mainland Europe. If you already own a holiday home in Europe, you halfway there.
As mentioned earlier, we have done this ourselves. We recently returned to the UK — arriving Wednesday, we planned to stay until Sunday but flew home Friday. With 320 sunny days a year, shorts and T-shirts most of the time, lower costs, excellent private healthcare, great schools, happy people, and vibrant cultures, Europe is hard to resist.
We have no plans to live in the UK again — and as the kid says… EEVEERRRRRR.
OUR EARLY TAX
EXPERIENCE PART
We have been involved in government approved tax mitigation strategies since the Section 42 and Section 44 Film Tax Partnerships of 2003 and operated these structures through to 2006.
Early adopters achieved very significant gains, as did we. As the schemes became more widely used, confidence and bravado increased, the schemes became more aggressive and deviated from the original legislation. As a result, many people encountered serious difficulties with HMRC.
Our later structures were deliberately more conservative and vanilla. In essence, we found films with a presale to guarantee recoupment and a film completion bond to guarantee completion. Clients leveraged using an unsecured RBS loan and generated a 60K profit on a 100K investment within six months of investing through a tax reclaim.
Over the 5 years of the movie, and the eventual sale in Year 5, investors would recoup 100% of the original investment and pay tax on this. Worst case scenario, investors benefitted from 60K for circa 4 years, so it was really about the time value of money. At 10% annual return this would result in a compound gain of circa 20k.
In addition, the projects themselves were relatively successful. We hosted events at Cannes Film Festival and won some awards at others. We were wise to keep things small and unaggressive. It was an enjoyable win win win.
ENTERPRISE
INVESTMENT
SCHEME
From 2008 onwards we have been involved in EIS successfully, specialising in Cleantech EIS.
With EIS, you get 30% income tax rebate, its CGT free, there is CGT deferral on existing liabilities, there is loss relief against income tax (not other capital gains – which is important as you will always have income) if things don’t go so well. The So maximum downside is circa 40% for a 45% taxpayer.
Our EIS opps are working out pretty well. It always takes longer than you expect.
EMIGRATION
AND TAXATION
Our initial inspiration for the tax structure we chose, came from one of Iceland’s banking m/billionaires back in 2012. He was advised from Luxembourg at a very significant cost.
From 2020, we investigated all the tax incentives around Europe. We never fancied Dubai and needed to be on UK/EU time zones. Strangely and quite wonderfully, there are some very good deals available for non-EU Citizens. Just as we used to attract the EU’s bankers, wealth creators and wealthy individuals ; to London by offering them non-domicile status (no tax on ex-UK worldwide income), mainland Europe is now doing the same for you.
Ultimately, paying tax in another country is money that that government would not have had previously. So, while the UK seems to concentrate on importing low skilled immigrants at a very significant cost, some states in Europe are attracting the UK’s wealthy.
In short, we can get you European Residency, registered for Tax and lower taxes targeting 25% on worldwide income and get you settled, all while Keeping very Calm 😊
EMIGRATION IN THE NEWS
“I left Britain because I knew Labour would get everything wrong.”
-Sir Rocco Forte
Quarter of wealthy consider quitting Britain under Labour
Now where are you interested in living?
‘Labour seem to hate people like me’: Britain’s wealthy head for the exit
10 tax raids the City is expecting in Reeves’s Budget
How the new EU entry-exit system worked as it launched
Should expats moving abroad be charged an exit fee?
Everything you need to know about renting out your home from abroad
Will taxes rise further in the 2025 Autumn Budget?
Labour’s expat exit tax is deeply flawed
KEEP CALM VS THE COMPETITION
We started looking into leaving the United Kingdom in 2020.
We gained residency in Portugal in 2021, through their Golden Visa program, which required a house purchase. Disappointingly, the tax benefits we were told about didn’t fully materialise and we eventually returned to the UK. It also rained all the time in the winter. There is a reason why the Algarve is so gloriously green.
Our experience is that many countries offering incentives or the organisations promoting them, often overplay their hand or continually change the terms. Principally, we used various organisations run by lawyers, who rarely gave us straight answers. Just like economists, one-armed lawyers are best and we never found one.
The fundamental problem with lawyers, is that they are almost conditioned to worry you into paying them more. While at Keep Calm we have immigration and tax lawyers, they do not run the show.
I first learned about the structure we implement from one of the Iceland’s banking millionaires. He took his tax advice from Luxembourg, was a tax resident in Luxembourg, and was happily living with his family wherever he wanted.
Our structure is pretty much the same, but just not in Luxembourg.
WHO IS THIS FOR?
Below we have detailed individual applications for using Keep Calm by sex, age, and situation.
You must however, have some sense of adventure. In fact, “adventure” became our catchphrase; we wouldn’t book places to stay until an hour before arrival. What’s the worst that could happen with a kid and four dogs? Pizza on the beach and a prime spot to watch the sunrise – the most beautiful sunrise.
Here’s the list:
• Male divorcee: You might consider Dubai. Personally, I would stick with Europe. To many dubious females out there.
• Female divorcee with kids: Get out here, its wonderful. Trick or treating in warm weather, with defined trick and treat routes and incredible effort from locals make it special for the kids. The schools are superb and the kids can’t wait to go everyday.
• Retirees: You still have 90 days to go back to the UK. We can probably reduce your tax on your pension to 0%. We need to get you an NT Code (no tax) code and inheritance tax once we get you a passport is sub 20%.
• Families With kids at Uni or in work: Do it !
• Familes with kids in secondary school: If you can work remotely and you have a decent level of control over your employer its going to work. Obviously, if you have to go work in the UK every day, its not, and the kids might not want to leave their friends.
•Young families: Absolutely do it! Big step, but worth starting to plan now. Come and have a look.