Moving abroad but keeping ebay shop

Jeremy535897

Part of the problem is that you have not identified whether you are likely to be resident elsewhere, and if you are, whether the double tax agreement in point treats you as resident elsewhere if you also happen to be resident in the UK, and whether the double tax agreement in point lets you off UK tax on trading profits if you have no permanent establishment in the UK. There is no way HMRC would answer a hypothetical question anyway, but they, like us, cannot really answer without the above information anyway.

paul100uk

Jeremy535897 said:

Part of the problem is that you have not identified whether you are likely to be resident elsewhere, and if you are, whether the double tax agreement in point treats you as resident elsewhere if you also happen to be resident in the UK, and whether the double tax agreement in point lets you off UK tax on trading profits if you have no permanent establishment in the UK. There is no way HMRC would answer a hypothetical question anyway, but they, like us, cannot really answer without the above information anyway.

Ok, lets use United Arab Emirates as an example. There is a double tax agreement with the UAE, but you do no pay income tax in the UAE. You fill out your P85 form to tell HMRC you are going to live in UAE and you only visit the UK for a couple of weeks a year.

You send your orders back weekly to the UK and someones posts them.

You no longer fill out a self assesment form for HMRC as you are non resident. You pay no income tax in the UK.

You pay no tax on your profits in UAE as there is no income tax. Tax is limited to import vat on anything you send to the UK.

Jeremy535897

You can read articles 4, 5 and 6 to see the details:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/584114/UK-UAE-DTC_GOV.UK-in-force.pdf

paul100uk

Jeremy535897 said:

You can read articles 4, 5 and 6 to see the details:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/584114/UK-UAE-DTC_GOV.UK-in-force.pdf

Probably have to get legal advice on whether one could use a UK address to distribute orders (and what percentage of the business would attract tax if it was deemed a PE) or whether you would have to dispatch from abroad.

Dead_keen

paul100uk said:

Jeremy535897 said:

You can read articles 4, 5 and 6 to see the details:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/584114/UK-UAE-DTC_GOV.UK-in-force.pdf

Probably have to get legal advice on whether one could use a UK address to distribute orders (and what percentage of the business would attract tax if it was deemed a PE) or whether you would have to dispatch from abroad.

Yes, it would (although tax advice from someone who knows about this sort of thing would be better).  And it would be important to tell them exactly what your agent in the UK would do (e.g. what do they do in relation to returns, deciding what postage service to use, etc).

I don't know if you've seen this guidance: https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/international-manual/intm264000  This page also has an interesting example: https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/international-manual/intm264520