There’s some mournful muttering in Monaco these days as tax-exiled Brits exchange views on HMRC’s clearly announced determination to keep a closer eye on those claiming to be non-resident in the UK for fiscal purposes.

We wonder what they’ll make of this? Recently HSBC and Baker & McKenzie – that’s the international law firm that used to employ Christine Lagarde, the French Finance Minister – ran a seminar in London to advise the British “non-resident” fatcats (said to number around 135,000) on keeping the taxman at bay. Among the wheezes proposed was to have a dog in a foreign home.

As one legal authority explained, “It’s a very good thing if you’ve got a pet abroad. The Revenue gets the right impression. Presumably, they’re meant to suppose that no true Brit would abandon his pooch to a lonely life of cappuccinos with other coddled canines while he got on, illicitly, with his normal life in SW7 or Gloucestershire.” Maybe ... and dogs can’t blow whistles. 


From Riviera Reporter Issue 126: April/May 2008

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