If You Must Stay in a Country Due to Unforeseen Circumstances – Including a Pandemic
Spring 2020, and we are experiencing an unprecedented period in terms of threat to health and economic stability.
Lower key disruption took place in April 2010, due to the ash caused by a volcanic eruption in Iceland and the subsequent cancellation of a large number of flights.
At this current time, there may be a number of other, less serious, but important unforeseen consequences.
Tax Residence
You may be in the unfortunate position of having to remain in a country and not being able to travel elsewhere and/or to return to your country of residence. If this is the case, you may inadvertently become tax resident by overstaying the number of days you should remain in that country.
Action to Take
Please see below a suggested list of action you can take, to help mitigate an unplanned over-stay of days, if you need to:
- Keep records of why you are in the country, and for how long.
- Keep all travel tickets/records.
- Keep any notifications advising you that you cannot leave that particular country.
- It is worth checking the legislation of the country you are in to see if there are exceptions to the usual residency rules. For example, HMRC in the UK provided exemptions during the volcanic ash episode in 2010.
All of the above sounds very simple – but can easily be forgotten in difficult and stressful times.
Additional Information
If you would like further information about the tax residence regime in a particular country, or what your particular status might be, do not hesitate to speak to your usual Dixcart contact or please email: advice@dixcart.com.
