HMRC statistics show that individuals claiming non-domiciled taxpayer status paid a record £9.4bn in UK income tax, capital gains tax and National Insurance contributions last year, despite a 25% drop in their numbers.

An individual of non-UK origin may claim to be non-domiciled for tax purposes, on the grounds that the UK is not their permanent home. Providing a non-domiciled individual meets the right criteria, that individual may choose the remittance basis of taxation. If they do this, they may pay a remittance basis charge, but they do not have to pay UK tax on foreign income unless remitted into the UK.

In recently released figures HMRC’s data shows there were an estimated 91,100 individuals claiming non-domiciled taxpayer status in the UK via their self assessment tax returns, down from around 120,000 in previous years.  However the figures from 2016/17 show an increase of £130m on the previous year and represent the highest total since the data was first collected in 2007/08.

HMRC says it traced the taxpayers who stopped claiming non-dom status, and found they split into two broadly equal groups:  taxpayers switching their status from non-domiciled taxpayer to domiciled taxpayer and continuing to pay tax in the UK, and  non-domiciled taxpayers who contributed very little tax in 2015/16, who left the UK tax system in 2016/17.

HMRC says this can be evidenced by the number of non-UK resident non-domiciled taxpayers having decreased from 33,600 in 2015/16 to 14,300 in 2016/17.

The tax paid by non-doms is at a record high at over £9bn, which works out an average of £100,000 in tax per non-dom. There are only 4,300 people who are medium to longer term residents claiming non-dom tax status with significant wealth outside the UK, not very many when the UK population stands at 66m.

Statistics on non-domiciled taxpayers in the UK 2007-08 to 2016-17 can be found on the .Gov website.

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