The non-dom or expat client and the specialist referral

A client arrives in the UK, leaves it, or lives here with connections and assets elsewhere. You are engaged on the UK tax position: residence under the statutory residence test, the implications of domicile and the reformed rules for internationally mobile individuals, the treatment of foreign income and gains, and the interaction of UK tax with assets and income abroad. This is demanding, specialist tax work and you are the professional untangling it.

Such clients almost always need more than a UK tax analysis. They may need cross-border financial planning, advice on overseas pensions and investments, coordination with advisers in other jurisdictions, and estate planning that spans more than one legal system. Much of that is regulated advice, and some of it requires specialist regulation you do not hold.

Your role is the UK tax picture. The regulated cross-border planning is the trigger for a referral.

The complexity of internationally mobile clients is exactly what makes a good referral so useful. A regulated advice firm taking on such a client needs to understand the UK tax position before it can advise properly, and that understanding is precisely what you produce. You establish the residence and domicile position and the shape of the UK tax exposure, which is the foundation everything else is built on.

Handing that groundwork to a specialist saves considerable time and reduces the risk of missteps. It also means the client reaches an appropriately qualified firm rather than a generalist who may not grasp the cross-border dimension. Your early, expert sight of the UK tax position is genuinely valuable to whoever advises next.

Through a referral network, the introduction goes to vetted, regulated firms equipped for cross-border work, so a complex client reaches capable hands rather than being left to find them alone.

The boundary needs care here because tax and regulated planning are especially intertwined for cross-border clients. Analysing the client's UK residence and domicile position, the taxation of their foreign income and gains, and the UK tax consequences of options they are considering is your work. Advising on overseas investments and pensions, structuring cross-border wealth, and making regulated recommendations across jurisdictions is not.

You can explain, for example, how the UK would tax particular arrangements or how a remittance would be treated, because that is tax analysis. You cannot recommend a specific cross-border investment strategy, an offshore product, or a particular structure as the right answer. Those are regulated activities, and for international matters they demand specialist regulation.

Keeping your contribution to the UK tax analysis, and routing the regulated planning to a specialist, is what keeps the introduction clean and within your competence.

The referral takes the usual shape, with the added importance of directing the client to a firm genuinely equipped for cross-border work. You disclose that you may receive a share of the fee, that it does not affect the advice, and that the client may choose their own adviser, then introduce a vetted, regulated firm.

• You analyse the UK residence, domicile and tax position.
• You identify the regulated cross-border planning the client needs.
• You disclose the arrangement and introduce a vetted, regulated firm suited to the work.
• You retain a share of the fee, in the region of 60 to 70 per cent for members.

A network handles the disclosure and fee mechanics and ensures the destination is properly vetted, which matters even more for complex international cases where the wrong firm could do real damage.

Internationally mobile clients are an expanding part of many tax practices as people, careers, and assets become more global and as the UK's rules for such individuals continue to evolve. Each arrival, departure, or cross-border restructuring generates fresh tax analysis by you and fresh need for regulated planning the client cannot get from you.

If your practice currently delivers the UK tax analysis and leaves the client to arrange cross-border planning on their own, you are repeatedly doing the hardest analytical work and then giving away the introduction that flows from it. A structured referral captures that value while ensuring the client reaches a firm equipped to help.

The UK tax position is yours to analyse. The regulated cross-border planning belongs to specialists. Your role is to make sure a complex client, whose position you understand better than anyone, is directed to capable, regulated hands rather than left to navigate alone.