Hi everyone!

It's my first post so be gentle. It's quite a long post because I want to explain some of the background around my thinking.

I've spent the last few hours reading this forum, and the last week or so reading other sites on the Internet to try and understand if what I want to do is achievable. Another poster on this forum "Maximum Brutus" seems to be (or used to be) in a similar position to me, but his questions weren't answered entirely. Before I get started, I will say I am doing my general research on this, but of course I will seek professional advice if I do go forwards with it. At the moment I am in "feasibility study" mode!

I've lived in the UK since birth, and started up a UK Ltd company 10 years ago. I am looking to sell the company soon.

Up until this year, there was an effective Capital Gains Tax rate of 10% for share disposals in the UK if you held them for > 2 years. I was fairly comfortable with that rate of tax, but is has changed this tax year to be 10% on the first 1m GBP then 18% thereafter. This seemed unreasonably high to me, so I started looking for solutions.

What I am doing is considering having an extended break after I sell the company, so I'd not be working for 12 months. This gives me a great opportunity to have an extended 'holiday', and Switzerland is ideal for some of my personal goals I want to achieve in this break:
- Become fluent in French
- Get to "expert" skiing level
- Lots and lots of cycling and book reading
- Build a house in the UK (not ideal, I know)
So I wanted to put a bit of background about my situation. I won't be working, I will be having it as my first decent holiday in 10 years and hope to have lots of friends come over from the UK to visit for skiing etc. I understand you need to spend >183 days in CH, and <91 days in the UK. Both of these are fine. I would intend to come back to the UK after spending a bit over a year in CH.

What I want to do is dispose of my shares in the company and pay as little tax as possible. As I have been resident in the UK all my life, I think I am right in saying I would be Swiss resident and UK normally resident if I lived in CH for the year. Because of the UK normally resident status, I need to make use of the UK-CH double taxation agreement. I think there is a 0% rate for CGT in CH, but there seems to be some confusion about whether this would apply to my situation; there is talk about CGT on professional income, this is usually in reference to professional traders, but the capital gain I have realised is through my professional work.

I have read some things about the lump sum tax for resident aliens, but rather worryingly, I think that the UK-CH double taxation agreement excludes this, so it wouldn't help my situation.

If we're talking about the lump sum tax, I understand the basis is 25% of property value then you pay the normal tax rate on that. Is there a rule of thumb for Vaud? E.G. Property = 1m CHF, tax = 200,000 CHF. I've thought Vaud would be the best place for me in terms of skiing, French-speaking, and transport infrastructure for weekend trips back to the UK and friends coming to visit.

On the subject of property, I would intend to live in a rented flat for a short period until I've found a ski chalet to buy. At what point is the tax negotiated, E.G. would it change when I bought the chalet? Or would you agree a figure in advance, and you cannot move to a resident that falls outside the tax value you've agreed without some kind of reassessment.

On a vaguely-relevant note, if the UK-CH double taxation agreement excludes the CH resident alien lump sum tax, does this mean Lewis Hamilton is paying normal income tax? I would have thought he'd have a very low tax burden to move to CH.

That's the sum of all of my thoughts at the moment, I would really appreciate everyone's input on it - especially those who have been in a similar situation.