Multinationals with globally mobile employees are adopting a wait and see approach to their policy for dealing with issues arising from the UK’s new tax rules for non-domiciled individuals (“non-doms”), according to a survey by KPMG in the UK.
Most of the respondents, who were HR professionals with responsibility for international assignments, said that the changes to the non-dom tax rules were unlikely to affect their assignment selection processes.
However when questioned on their likely reaction to specific issues arising from the new non-dom rules (such as whether they would be prepared to pay any additional UK tax the employee or their spouse incurs as a result of the rules) a significant proportion of the respondents appeared to have no firm policies in place.
Sarah Robert, Director, International Executive Services at KPMG in the UK said:
“It is not good policy to have no policy. No clear guidance tends to result in subjective decisions being made on issues arising with different employees. Such decisions are usually inconsistent and this often leads to employee discontent.”
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Sarah Robert continued:
“Despite the non-dom rules’ complexity, it is surprising that large global employers have not made greater progress in adapting to this new legislation which has been in force since 6 April this year. It may well be the case that UK-based HR professionals are struggling to get these issues discussed outside the UK or amend global policies to reflect these peculiarly British rules.”
