Tax planning is an important factor for any planned investments in the UK. There are lots of options when considering how to structure UK investment. You could for example
- purchase in your name
- purchase jointly with someone else
- use an offshore company
- use an offshore trust
- use some other entity (eg an LLP, a foundation etc)
No matter which option you choose there will be tax implications.
Personal purchase for example is often attractive in terms of
capital gains tax. However a disadvantage of personal ownership is that the UK investment will be within the scope of UK Inheritance tax. Using an offshore company can ensure that the UK investment is outside the scope of UK inheritance tax where you're a non UK domiciliary, but this opens up a whole new 'can of worms' and there are a lot of knock on tax effects to consider.
If you're interested in this we've looked at when an offshore company can be useful for avoiding UK taxes in this article:
Investing in the UK via an offshore company
You will also find these tax planning books very useful.
