Hello all ... my first post soplease be kind as I am not sure this is the right section for this post

Ok I have a complicated salarysituation which is as follows:

I am a joint share holder andDirector of a company located in Zurich which I share with my Swiss nationalbusiness partner.

Whilst our (GmbH) factory facilitiesare located in Switzerland I actually reside full time in the UK working remote.

Our company which was originallysetup as a side line business was established 4 years ago and as of January2011 I started taking a monthly salary (monies from the previous 3 years havebeen invested back into the business).

The Swiss authorities requiredetails of my salary payment and our accountant in Switzerland has requested meto fill in an E101 form. I have read through this form and it does not appearto be applicable to my circumstances as I am employed by my company on a fixedsalary plus and do not live in CH nor am I self employed which the E101 isapplicable to.

As I am now taking salary etc Iwill need to pay UK Tax Return plus N.I. contributions.

I have spoken with various accountantsin the UK but none have been able to advise me on the best way forwards with mysituation so can anybody help advise me my best way forwards or put me in contactwith an accountant whom can best advise me.

I do not have a personal bankaccount in CH but our business solely does. The company is not registered inthe UK in any form if this helps clarify our operating setup.

I have been advised to look into anEBT scheme “Employee Benefit Trust” but this all sounds complicated and a wayof tax avoidance which does not interest me but I would obviously like to payas minimal as possible within the laws of both countries.

Thanks in advance for yourassistance

Best regards,
Mark

go to the hmrc website and look-up PAYE rules. if you should have withheld tax under PAYE you'll find that you will have already racked-up quite a lot in fines.

Since my accountant deals primarily with contractors who go all over the place I could give you his details if you want. He may be able to advise.

Welcoem to the forum BTW

Thanks Phil and yes this is probably going to be the case

Thanks for the welcome Bexie and yes any contact information you could provide would be greatly appreciated

Don't go near an EBT.

I suggest that you post your question on www.contractoruk.com as well.

One possibility would be to establish a UK ltd co. Costs about £50. Your uk ltd co, invoices the Swiss company for the work you've done. Your uk ltd co pays you a very small salary (~£6K), along with the employers and employees NI contributions and PAYE, and pays the rest as dividends, which don't attract NI, and, unlike Switzerland, come with tax already paid. (If you stay on basic rate).

Many thanksNotAllThere

Yes I’veheard that EBT’s are all the hot topic of discussion down at the Tax office andwhilst have proved very beneficial in past year are now subject toinvestigation and have to be declared upon setup, so I will not be going downthat route.

The structureyou suggest is most definitely very logical and something I have alreadysuggest to my business partner as a way forwards BUT how would we go aboutmoving monies from our business in CH to a Ltd in the UK without loosing moniesso I can take my salary and dividends etc?

To simplify,would it be possible for me to set up as a sole trader in the UK under my ownname and invoice the company direct? If this would pose as legitimate andwithin the laws then this would proof better for me as I would only be subjectto monthly Stamp N.I. which is minimal?

Thanks,
Mark

P.S. I willcheck out contractoruk.com forum now and place a post and any feedback Ireceive I will post here for other users future reference

Sole trader is definitely a possibility. It's just not something I know how to go about doing in the UK.

(OTOH I was a ltdco contractor for years there).

My experience of tax authorities in different countries is that their primary concern is that you are actually paying tax somewhere. Once you convince them that you are paying tax in a country then it gets a lot easier.

After that it gets down to fine tuning about which country should you pay tax in & what concessions you get.

There are double taxation agreements between UK & Switzerland so you will not pay tax twice.

If the payments you get from Switzerland are classed as salary then I suppose they should be deducting Swiss (at source) tax & AHV etc. Don't know how this works if you do not have a Swiss work permit.

It would probably be easier if the payments you get from Switzerland are classed as consultancy fees paid against your invoices.

With this approach maybe you could send one invoice now for the year to date & maybe then you are able to claim the earlier payments were payments on account so hopefully you are not in trouble with UK PAYE. I suppose this would only work if you were a sole trader or Ltd. company.

I assume you have other work in UK & are currently paying taxes so you should get some sympathy from the UK tax people because you are not a tax avoider.