You don’t get to choose your parents; nor where you are born. And, since these are the most significant factors in determining domicile, it’s fair to say that domicile isn’t really a matter of choice. If you are ‘sufficiently foreign’ (happily, case law offers some rather more specific criteria) you are a ‘non-dom’: otherwise you aren’t.
What you do get a choice on is whether to accept any tax advantages that your ‘non-dom’ status may potentially offer: essentially, whether to defer payment of UK tax on foreign income and gains unless and until you bring them to the UK, in return for paying (in some cases) a flat fee of up to £60,000 per year. Sometimes it’s worth it: sometimes it isn’t.
The choice is yours and yours alone. At one time a married woman was in UK tax terms a mere appendage of her husband: but not now – ‘independent taxation’ was introduced more than 30 years ago.
Of course, if you happen to be one of the richest women in the country and married to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, your choice as a ‘strong independent woman’ might well cause your husband political embarrassment. But, frankly, other than sulk over the breakfast marmalade there’s not a fat lot he can do about it.
Tricky mixture, tax and politics.
For more information on the tax implications of non-UK domicile and non-UK resident tax status, please get in touch with your usual BKL contact or use our enquiry form.