UK bound

Acquisition of domicile of choice

The taxpayers who were all children of NH appealed against HMRC’s decision that they were UK-domiciled from birth. The main issue for the First-tier Tribunal was whether their grandfather IH had acquired a domicile of choice in Brazil before their father was born. If he had not he would have had a UK domicile when NH was born with the result that he and his children obtained a domicile of origin in the UK on their birth. The family all lived in the UK at the time of the hearing.

The First-tier Tribunal accepted that IH had been living in Brazil for about two years before his son was born having married a Brazilian woman. However this seemed ‘too short a time for a young man’ to have formed a ‘settled intention to reside permanently there’. He was in...