Foreign Tax Laws & UK

[ekoranger]

Hello- Can anyone tell me what the up to date situation is regarding the enforcement of foreign tax laws in UK courts (non-EU)?

[fredpuli47]

If you mean 'Can a judgment in a foreign court to recover foreign taxes be enforced in the English Courts?' the answer has been 'No' for as long as anyone can remember. Likewise a foreign country can't bring an action here to recover tax due under its laws. It's a principle of 'conflict of laws' (the international law established over time) that the English courts will not entertain an action for foreign revenue (and vice versa) .

A leading case which explains this principle in robust terms is Governent of India Ministry of Finance (Revenue Division) v Taylor reported at [1955] 1 All ER 292 and [1955]AC 491 which you can read here:

http://www.uniset.ca/other/css/1955AC491.html

Now, I can't guarantee that the principle has suddenly been abandoned or changed recently but , particularly as you are concerned with non EU countries,that would seem very unlikely, given that it is pretty fundamental to international law.It's what countries dealing with English courts accept. (As ti the EU,I'm not aware of French taxes being enforceable in England: the authorities there rely on seizing assets or income originating in France or seizing and freezing bank accounts etc which happen to belong to the taxpayer and are within France. And,of course, any country in the world might have laws allowing it to seize the taxpayer himself if he enters the country)

[ekoranger]

Thanks Fredpuli47 for taking the time to reply with such an informative answer. I was a little concerned as someone mentioned to me that there was some form of change about to take effect in Jan. of this year - I looked it up on the web but it was unclear if it was to be retrospective or not. One site said that it was a 'technical' change -whatever that means!!!

[fredpuli47]

Ekoranger. Reading the judgments of the House of :Lords in Govt of India v Taylor once again, and the cases there cited, with due consideration I will change my assessment of 'not very likely' (that there's been a change) to 'surely impossible'. That's because analysis of the authoritiies shows the most likely reason for the rule to be sovereignty.One country is sovereign from the others. Therefore to allow another country to impose and enforce its own tax laws in our courts would be to infringe our sovereignty, a kind of 'invasion', if you will.Simple.

The non EU world is never going to agree to a change in such a fundamental and old principle of international relations.

The EU itself can't agree anything about tax , even 'technically'. The nearest it has got to unifying VAT and taxes on tobacco etc (an off -stated aim) is to have Monaco (not a full member of the EU) agree to impose VAT at all, and at the same rate as in neighbouring France,! That's it. In spite of the supposed intentions of close or adjoining member states, the rates still vary so much that cross -border travel can still means cheap deals for visitors.

If that's the best the EU can do then there's no prospect of reciprocally enforcing income taxes etc within it. There's enough argument about sovereignty as it is, without that.And think of the bureaucracy involved !

[poorvic]

go to google and type in hr 5814 and hr6146 - these are new laws against allowing enforcement of british libel laws in the usa. These bills are pending but as far as i know new york is one state which does not allow it under certain circumstances. You can find that on goodle
good luck