Who would a Gibraltar company pay PAYE tax to for a UK employee?
December 16, 2009 4:00 PM   Subscribe

If a company registered in Gibraltar is employing people in the UK, to whom is PAYE income tax paid to? Longish story follows...

About 6 months ago, I was employed in the UK a company that for all intents and purposes does business in the UK; but is registered in Gibralter for, I think, tax dodging purposes.

(They don't pay VAT, claim all work is outsourced to Gibralter, etc.)

I've also never received a pay slip from them, though PAYE tax was obviously withheld from my normal salary at a normal rate.

Bracketing the dodgy stuff for now, who would a Gibraltar company pay PAYE tax to if they employ people in the UK?

Should they have been withholding PAYE at all?

I suspect that they were just pocketing the difference, since they certainly seem to have no problem committing VAT fraud worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.


I ask because I'm now involved in some potentially messy issues with the company, and I'd like all the ammunition I can get.

Throw away email, if you need it: dodgeytaxuk@gmail.com
posted by anonymous to Work & Money (3 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
I'm very, very far from having any particular answers, but you could try phoning your tax office. When I last rang mine they could call up a statement of my recent PAYE and NI contributions. I'm pretty sure they can post you a NI statement, if nothing else. This page seems to be how to find your tax office. (Incidentally, other things aside, I suspect that not having received payslips is a bad sign.)
posted by Luddite at 6:15 AM on December 17, 2009


I am not an accountant, but if you're working in the UK and they're taking tax off you for PAYE, rather than trying to pretend that you should pay it yourself, that tax should go the Inland Revenue - simple as that. You are not a Gibraltan employee, so shouldn't be paying tax there - otherwise all of use would work for companies based in tax havens and pay no tax!

More links
posted by prentiz at 6:24 AM on December 17, 2009


I posed this question to a friend who has some knowledge in this area and received the following answer:

Interesting...

An overseas employer is required to operate PAYE if it has a presence in the UK. For these purposes a presence would mean simply a UK address - branch/agency/office/establishment (but not the private address of an employee) HMRC could send documents to. This PAYE is payable to HMRC if the work is carried out in the UK.

It is possible they may have been a requirement from Gibraltar to withhold tax and pay it over to the Gibraltar tax authorities, but seems unlikely.

If UK resident a person must pay UK tax and national insurance contributions on his worldwide income and it is his responsibility to do so. If the employer has no presence in the UK this can be done by self assessment or by the employee operating PAYE directly with HMRC (a direct payment scheme).

Sounds like the employee has been defrauded here. Best to contact HMRC (perhaps anonymously at first) as I would hope they would be sympathetic and seek to recover the PAYE from the employer.

posted by jonnyploy at 8:53 AM on December 18, 2009


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