Global Mobility & Tax Equalisation - Policy Guidance for Payroll & HR Professionals

Introduction

The international skills shortage is driving a renewed interest in cross border assignments - if your business cannot find the necessary talent it needs in each jurisdiction it operates in, then the most obvious solution is to shuffle the existing workforce to where their skills are needed.

Moving staff around is expensive with likely costs being 2 - 3 times base salary. It is imperative therefore to have a global mobility policy to manage this process.

Compliance with UK tax and National Insurance withholding requirements can often be difficult to achieve in the case of foreign assignees sent to the UK but paid wholly or partly abroad. Adopting a policy and carrying out the incumbent administration via a modified PAYE scheme are excellent ways to ensure compliance.

One of the largest costs may well be tax and the need to protect your assignees from its full impact.

The general principle of tax equalisation is easy to identify - that an employee sent to another country should not be out of pocket for tax costs. But how can this be achieved?

Having a tax equalisation policy is the single most effective way to give would be overseas assignees certainty that a posting to the UK will not cost them anything in terms of their personal exposure to income taxes.

Finally, your policies should also reflect the reality of the working from home (WFH) revolution.

Much of this demand is employee led, and subsequently it is important to make clear that protections offered to employees on assignment will not necessarily apply to those who have chosen to live and work from home abroad.

Presented by payroll expert Tim Kelsey, this virtual classroom seminar will explore all the key issues you will need to consider.

What You Will Learn

This live and interactive session will cover the following:

• Global mobility policies - essential contents
• Tax residency and liability for expatriates
• What is tax equalisation?
• Why run a scheme?
• The three broad models
• Tax equalisation - how it works
• Tax protection - how it works
• Flat rate scheme -how it works
• Hypothetical tax calculation under each of the models
• Issues to address when designing scheme rules for your company
• The balance sheet approach - how it works
• HMRC scheme to make life easier for incoming expatriates - modified PAYE schemes
• WFH considerations

Recording of live sessions: Soon after the Learn Live session has taken place you will be able to go back and access the recording - should you wish to revisit the material discussed.