R (Davies & anr) v HMRC; R (Gaines-Cooper) v HMRC [2011] UKSC 47

March 2012 #117

The first appellants were property developers who were resident in the UK until 2001 when, with the benefit of professional advice designed to bring about a cessation of their ordinary residence here, they moved to Belgium to take up employment with a Belgian company of which they had become directors and shareholders. They claimed to rely on the general guidance published by the Revenue entitled ‘Residents and non-residents – Liability to tax in the United Kingdom’, known as IR20. Later that year they realised chargeable gains in respect of which they were liable to capital gains tax un...