French / Swiss Bank Accounts

tradetime

Personally I would say it would be very foolish to base any tax accounting decisions on info gathered here. I'd spend a few quid on a qualified tax accountant to answer these questions. There is currently a big crackdown on tax evasion in the Eurozone, and believe me you don't want to get caught up in that.
I personally believe you must be resident / domiciled somewhere for tax purposes, from there you see how you can best avoid tax. But I am not a tax expert.

martyn4764

poppyoscar wrote: »

if france is your principal residence, regardless of how many days you are there, I think you will pay tax.

Yep; under French taxation rules you are considered liable for French tax if:

Your main home is in France.
Your family or dependants are in France.
Your main financial interests are in France.
You spend 183 days in France.

You only have to fulfil one of the above.

skoolmaster

Useful for UK Pound earning Brits who have property or are long term visitors / residents in France

http://www.britline.com/

Application pack:
http://www.britline.com/pdf/account_opening_pack.pdf

Cook_County

Jonbvn wrote: »

I did not want to list the full requirements, but this from HMRC website:


"If you leave the UK to work full-time abroad under a contract of employment, you are treated as not resident and not ordinarily resident if you meet

all the following conditions

•



your absence from the UK and your employment abroad both last for at

least a whole tax year

• during your absence any visits you make to the UK

- total less than 183 days in any tax year, and average less than 91 days a tax year. (The average is taken over the period of absence up to a maximum of four years)

Any days spent in the UK because of exceptional circumstances
beyond your control, for example the illness of yourself or a member of
your immediate family, are not normally counted for this purpose.)"

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/pdfs/ir20.pdf

This version of IR20 is only temporary because it does not reflect this year's Finance Bill which became effective from 6 April 2008.

I agree that full time employment abroad would count in deciding if one has broken UK residence; but the OP is not in full time employment abroad and never will be because of the rotational nature of the work. Therefore unless he creates a home base outside of the UK he will remain UK resident. This has been tested frequently in the courts recently. The UK does not have an objective test based of residence based merely on day counting, although all of the professional institutes have called on the government to create such a test.