Crikeyalmighty
Here in Denmark I can’t declare that all our income is UK derived (it is). If I live here for more than 6 months of the year I have to pay tax here wherever the income was derived..
You have reminded me that Helle Thorning-Schmidt (former Danish prime minister and former MEP) was a panellist on Question Time last month. She was somewhat sneery about the UK's contribution to the war in Ukraine. What I had not remembered at the time (and it was not mentioned by Fiona Bruce in her introduction) is that Helle Thorning-Schmidt is married to Labour MP Stephen Kinnock.
Looking at her Wikipedia page has revealed some surprising complications with tax. August 2010 -
Lord Kinnock's son embroiled in tax row that might cost his wife the Danish prime minister's job. [opposition leader at the time]
it emerged that Mr Kinnock junior pays taxes in Switzerland - which has the lowest taxes in Europe - and not in Denmark, where his family home is situated but which has the highest tax rates in the world.
It has saved Mr Kinnock and his wife Helle Thorning-Schmidt, leader of Denmark’s Social Democrats, an estimated £40,000 a year.
But it has caused uproar in Denmark, not least because Mr Kinnock’s wife’s party has called for Denmark’s tax rates to be raised higher to cope with the recession.
Lord Kinnock’s son and daughter-in-law deny any wrongdoing. But Ms Thorning-Schmidt, 43, admits she made a ‘big and sloppy error’ by giving incorrect information to the Danish authorities about how much time her husband spent in Denmark.
With a tax rate of just 15 per cent, Mr Kinnock pays an estimated £12,000 a year in taxes to the Swiss authorities.
If he paid taxes in Denmark, where everyone earning more than £45,000 pays 63 per cent, his tax bill would be in the region of £50,000, nearly £40,000 more.
Until the scandal, Ms Thorning-Schmidt was ahead in the polls and on course to win Denmark’s forthcoming general election.
Now she is fighting to save her political career as Right-wing enemies claim she is unfit to run the country.
She was forced to cut short the family’s summer holiday to respond to claims that she misled the Danish authorities by providing two different versions of her husband’s living arrangements.
She told the Justice Ministry her husband spent every weekend in Denmark, allowing him to be listed as a co-owner of their £400,000 home in the Danish capital.
But she told tax officials that Mr Kinnock did not spend more than 33 weekends in Denmark, thereby allowing him to avoid the country’s tax rates.
Police ordered an inquiry after claims that she and her husband were guilty of a criminal offence.
Mr Kinnock has agreed to pay taxes in Denmark for last year - even though he is not obliged to do so - in an attempt to kill off the row.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1301252/Lord-Kinnocks-son-embroiled-tax-row-cost-wife-Danish-prime-ministers-job.html
As a non-resident and UK citizen Mr Kinnock would not normally be allowed to buy a property in Denmark.
According to a poll in Berlingske Tidende, a leading Danish newspaper, 56% of voters do not believe that it was only a "sloppy error".
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10856352
It gets more complicated (and interesting with some skulduggery from her opponents and press leaks) - you can read the rest here; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helle_Thorning-Schmidt
To cut a long story short - it all turned out ok for Helle Thorning-Schmidt and Stephen Kinnock (lucky them) and she was elected as Prime Minister of Denmark in 2011 - but given her sneery attitude towards the UK on QT, I wouldn't want her anywhere near Downing Street as the wife of a Labour government minister.