Norwegain tax payer, UK resident

e-p-k

Hello board.
Looking for some expert advice and this is the place to ask i hope.

I work offshore on a drilling rig for a Norwegain company and work in Norwegain waters.
I get paid in Norwegain currency and also pay Norwegian tax , Which is set at a higher rate of 48%
I also pay tax on my flights and travel expenses which is also set at 48%

Im a UK national and a UK resident. I am out of country less than 6 month in a year.

I have been told that because i pay a higher rate of tax than i would in the UK i can claim this back via self assesment.

Is this possible ?

jennifernil

There may be some special rules for offshore workers , do you read Norwegian? You can look at the rules on the internet. There are also some pages in English. I would check what is said there against your particular circumstances. www.skatteetaten.no If you google "skatt i norge" you get access to the stuff in English too.

How long have you been doing this work? Have you applied for a "skattekort" in Norway, this sets your deduction % ?
If you do not have this tax card your employer has to deduct 50% meantime, so it sounds like you do have one. You are being taxed on your travelling expenses as it is treated as "travelling to your place of work", which is not a deductable expense.

As you are resident in UK you should be paying tax here on all your earnings, but you get double taxation relief, this must be what you have heard about. As far as I can make out (OH is in a slightly similar position) you can only get relief here up to the same amount as the tax here would have been, so that sounds like anything over 40% is lost.

You can read about this on the HMRC website.

Your 48% presumably also includes Norwegian National Insurance contributions, presumably you are not also paying here?

e-p-k

I have been working in Norway for approx 2 years now, I do my 2 week trip then have 4 weeks at home and so on.

Yes i do have a tax card and i am on tax class one.

I also pay voluntary National Insurance contributions in the UK, This was to make sure i had 30 years when i retire ( still some years to go !)

I had heard about the tax treaty with the UK and Norway, But was told that i could get a refund / rebate for the difference in tax between the UK and Norway on my earnings.

Regards

jennifernil

I think you will find that is not the case, but it is worth asking here anyway.

If you think about it, why should the UK tax payers refund you Norwegian tax just because it is more than here? It is your choice to work there.

This is not meant unkindly I can assure you.

To pay that percentage of tax in Norway you must be a high earner. My husband works in related areas (diving support vessels) and knows that offshore work in Norway is very well paid, as of course it is in UK. A couple of his Norwegian relatives work offshore.

You should be sending in a return here every year, if you don't then the tax people here may get curious. You will not have tax to pay here, but it will keep everything in order. Remember the tax years here are different from in Norway.

If you are paying NI in Norway too then you will build up a pension there too. The Norwegian pension is much more than here, especially the earnings related bit, but is not paid out untill you are 67.

What is tax class 1? OH now has his tax card, he works mainly here for a Norwegian company so is only taxed there on any work actually done in Norway. This is not that much so he has a 10% tax card. It means he still pays too much in Norway, so he will need to claim it back.

bajangal

You should be able to claim back part of your travelling expenses on your "selvangivelsen".You could also check about your tax as you are paying NI in the UK.
Check your 2009 Selvangivelsen when it comes in January.

jennifernil

Hi, bajangal. This is OH's first year doing this work, so he has not had any experience yet of the "selvangivelsen".

Do they send it out automatically? And have you any idea how long it will take to get overpaid tax refunded? Presumably the refund is directly from the tax people?

bajangal

jennifernil wrote: »

Hi, bajangal. This is OH's first year doing this work, so he has not had any experience yet of the "selvangivelsen".

Do they send it out automatically? And have you any idea how long it will take to get overpaid tax refunded? Presumably the refund is directly from the tax people?

Selvangivelsen covers the tax year 1 January-31 December. It is sent out around the 2nd week in January.
Everything financial is taken into consideration, ie: income, tax paid, funds in your bank account, money owed, value of house, value of car. All this information will be shown on the form. It will also tell you if you are entitled to a tax refund (and how much), or if you need to make any repayments (and how much).
It comes from the tax office (Skatteetaten) and they send you 2 copies. If you agree you sign 1 copy and return it. If you need to change anything or ask them to take anything into consideration (ie payment overseas), then you complete the relevant sections prior to sending it back.
Any tax refunds are paid into your current account (along with interest) around June but sometimes it is in September.
A little tip. If you have a bank account in Norway then make sure that by the 31st December, you have withdrawn the vast majority of the money. If you leave it in there, the taxman will take it into account for tax purposes. Withdraw by 31st December and you can always recredit it the first working day in January. Standard practice....

jennifernil

No, we do not have any bank accounts or anything else in Norway, everything is here in UK. OH is retired after working here since 1970, but is doing occasional work for the head office division ( in Oslo) of the company which used to employ him here in the UK.

He is paid directly from Oslo to our bank account here and it has taken ages (over a year) to get the tax situation in Norway sorted, mainly because, incredibly, nobody seemed to know what to do about it! In the meantime they were witholding 50% of his pay, all of which up to April 2008 has had to be declared for tax here.

Finally the Norwegian tax people decided that they could only tax income from work actually done in Norway, which is about 15% of it. I don't know whether a 10% card is the smallest they can issue, but it will still mean that the amount deducted is about twice what they estimate his final liability for 2008 will be.

The tax years here and there being different does not help either!

It is a bit depressing that he will have to wait so long to get the excess refunded.

bajangal

Have a look at the following link. It may answer some of your questions.
http://www.skatteetaten.no/upload/Brosjyrer%20og%20bok/Brosjyre-Working_in_Norway.pdf

Andy_G_3

jennifernil wrote: »

Do they send it out automatically? And have you any idea how long it will take to get overpaid tax refunded? Presumably the refund is directly from the tax people?

It should arrive automatically provided you are in the system. However, this year I had to chase them hard for the forms and eventually they sent me a pdf of the forms. The actual printed forms arrived with me after the deadline for them to be submitted!

The Norwegian Foregin Tax Office normally write to you with their assessment in about October time and if you are owed any refund then that is normally with you late November / early December. (The tax form will have been submitted in April of the same year).

The refund is direct from the tax people and comes in a cheque via the Alliance and Leicester (minus a couple of £ for handling).

Andy_G_3

e-p-k wrote: »

I work offshore on a drilling rig for a Norwegain company and work in Norwegain waters.
I get paid in Norwegain currency and also pay Norwegian tax , Which is set at a higher rate of 48%
I also pay tax on my flights and travel expenses which is also set at 48%

Im a UK national and a UK resident. I am out of country less than 6 month in a year.

I have been told that because i pay a higher rate of tax than i would in the UK i can claim this back via self assesment.

Is this possible ?

You should clarify what the 48% is - whether it includes National Insurance or whether it is just tax charged at a higher rate due to the amount of money you earn.

I only pay the lower rate of 30% and no longer do enough days (earn enough money) to qualify for the higher rate (called top tax in Norway). I also pay my National Insurance in the UK and have an E-101 to prove my UK NI payments.

You can't claim any tax back in the UK because you paid a higher amount in Norway. You can however offset any payments against your UK tax liability.

For the self-assessment you need to fill out a Foreign Pages Supplement. For a basic tax payer if you paid 30% tax to Norway then you don't have to pay UK tax on those earnings but you cannot claim the additional 8% as tax back. Similarly for higher rate tax payers if you pay 48% tax to Norway you can only offset the 40% against UK tax - you can't claim the additional 8%.

Commuting tax is a bit of a grey area as I know people who do pay it and know people who don't pay it. I don't pay it as I work in different areas of the Norwegian Continental shelf on different projects for different companies. As you work in what is seen as a fixed place then it is harder to argue against.