Readers’ forum: Technicalities of claiming the foreign earnings exemption

Low earning complex expatriates

I act for a married couple. They are Thai citizens with visas which allow them the right to stay indefinitely in the UK. They are both US green card holders and are not domiciled in the UK.

In mid 2021-22 during the pandemic they moved to the UK from the US. The wife continued to work for her existing US employer: although the role was based in Taiwan she continued to work remotely from the UK (Taiwan had shut down). Her husband had a job based in Switzerland and when possible travelled back and forth weekly between the UK and Switzerland but during much of the pandemic worked remotely from home in the UK. Both of them had sufficient presence in the UK to make them resident under the statutory residence test and they can’t rely on the exceptional circumstances exemption for...