UK HMRC & Cross Border Trips
 

Hi folks,

Hoping to get some opinion on how other ex-pat guys handle tech-stops/cross boarder trips when transiting the UK and how it affects the SRT.

I'm based down in the ME but regularly stop off in the UK for fuel on the way west. Over this tax year the visits have been in excess of 6 'crossings'. I've read the guidance from HMRC and at odds with my UK accountant who interprets the rules as giving me a tie to the UK. They insist I have to document and declare each crossing - and also have the outbound sector count as a 'work day'.

Typically our tech stops never last more than one hour turnaround.

Trying to see how others have this worked out?

Cheers for any advice..

This affected me a couple of years ago while living in Spain and crossing the UK border about once every two months. Fortunately I passed the Auto Overseas Residence test No1 as I was not in the UK for more than 14 days. If you look at the HMRC it defines Cross Border Trips as:

Begin in the UK.
End in the UK.
Begin and End in the UK.

Your Cross Border Trips neither begin nor end in the UK. This could just be a matter of semantics but it seems to exclude transit stops.

WM.

I take it you have had a read of this :

https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...nal_078500.pdf

..especially the bit about Transit Days, albeit as a passenger - page 35 onwards, comes with examples...

Hi guys,

Thanks for the replies, cheers wiggy for the link to RDR3. I had looked at that and my accountant being conservative interpreted each sector to mean a 'trip'.

The other issue this drags up 'work days' where again, they want to interpret these tech stops as 'UK Work Days'. Referring me to page 42 onwards on RDR3.

Grateful for your insight, helps clear things up for me. For sure, its not easy :(

For the benefit of others in this situation and to clarify :

If you have made 6 trips as a paid pilot that either begin or end in the UK then you are in the scope of 'relevant job'. This means you can't use the third automatic test which is the usual easy answer. So you have to plough your way through the other tests and possibly the ties.

As for counting as a work day in the UK this may or may not be relevant , depending on on what test you need to apply. But, yes, likely these do count as work days. p44 of RDR3 guidance notes ( link in posts above) has all of the rules , clearly stated. Including the discussion of trips vs sectors to determine work days.

Page 43 of the guidance notes clarifies the 6 trips rule

Workers with relevant jobs and the third automatic UK and overseas tests

3.29

If you have a relevant job at any time during the year, neither the

third automatic UK test nor the third automatic overseas test will apply to you if you

make at least 6 cross-border trips in the year that either begin or end in the UK. This means that you cannot be
UK resident on the grounds that you work full-time in the UK and that you cannot be non-UK resident on the
grounds that you work full-time overseas. However, you can still determine your

residence status by reference to the other automatic tests where they apply to

you. If you do not meet any of the other automatic tests, you will need to

consider the sufficient ties test to determine your residence status.