Remitting money from mixed funds: the ordering rules

Most people who are UK resident, non domiciled and who use (or have used) the remittance basis of taxation know that they should only remit funds from a capital account if they don't want to pay taxes on the funds remitted. And most people who intend to benefit from this advantageous tax system will have created a capital account prior to coming to the UK that allows them to live in the UK without having to pay any tax on the funds they bring over. 

But sometimes, people will only have been made aware of those rules once they are in the UK. Or they might have created a capital account without enough funds to maintain their lifestyle. In those instances, they will have to bring revenue from what the HMRC calls mixed funds. A mixed fund account is an account that has capital and revenue mixed together. If they need to remit funds from such an account, they will have to pay some tax. But the calculation of that tax can very complex because of what the HMRC calls the ordering rules, and which have been in place since 2008.

Each mixed fund account is actually a series of virtual buckets which are increased or decreased every time there is money coming in or out of the account. There are 8 buckets per tax year:

1. UK employment income 
2. Foreign employment income not subject to a foreign tax 
3. Other foreign income (ie. trade profits, rental income or investment income) not subject to a foreign tax 
4. Foreign capital gains not subject to a foreign tax 
5. Foreign employment income subject to a foreign tax 
6. Other foreign income (ie. trade profits, rental income or investment income) subject to a foreign tax 
7. Foreign capital gains subject to a foreign tax 
8. Any funds not covered above (i.e. capital)

Non-doms: New Mixed Fund Cleansing Opportunity

Individuals who have been taxed on the remittance basis will have a window of two tax years from April 2017 to rearrange their mixed funds held in overseas bank accounts. Where adequate records have been kept, some amounts can then be remitted to the UK from such accounts free of tax.

The opportunity will be available to all non-UK domiciled individuals who have paid tax on the remittance basis at some point prior to 6 April 2017, even if they have not paid the remittance basis charge. This includes those where the remittance basis applied without being claimed (for example when an individual's foreign income or gains were less than £2,000). It is not available however to individuals born in the UK with a UK domicile of origin who would have become non domiciled at a later date.

This will provide a valuable opportunity for many non-UK domiciled individuals to "top-up" clean capital accounts to finance UK expenditure. The individual will need to analyse the sources of funds in the account such that an amount equal to or at least less than the clean capital can be identified. This could prove to be a time-consuming and potentially expensive process for accounts which have been in existence for some time and / or where there has been plenty of activity, particularly in terms of additions, acquisitions, disposals and withdrawals.