Having a baby in the uk

[BeeMyBaby]

So following on from the other thread I thought I would make my own with slightly different circumstances.
I moved abroad 6 months ago but plan to have a baby (hopefully) next winter. I worked in the UK full time (12 years) until I moved and had my other children in the uk. I plan to work in the summer in the uk for 3 months and I'm also trying to gain employment remotely whilst I'm abroad. According to the uk tax website, if I am in the uk for over 90 days per year, plus work more than 3 hours per day for more than 30 days per year, then I count as resident so need to pay tax on all my income. Fine. But in that case if I am paying NI (I would probably earn just under the threshold to pay income tax), would I be entitled to free NHS care? Would it just be a case of showing proof that I pay NI still?

Reasons for wanting to have a child in the uk rather than where I am:

• My home is very far away from a hospital (1hr plus, no ambulances, home births are not allowed)
• I would want my child to have the same citizenship (which automatically passed to their child) which would not be the case if I had it abroad
• healthcare is questionable here. There is no G&A, I know a woman who used a private facility for her twins and they strapped her legs up for her five hour labour and wouldn't let her move, leaving her with lasting back pain. They say the private hospitals opt for csections whenever they can as they make more money. The public healthcare system consists of ripped beds and blood dripping out of bins and splattered across curtains (I had a recent a&e visit for my son).

If I am not entitled to use the NHS, does anyone roughly know how much it would cost, I don't mind going for a home birth as I heard they are cheaper, but I do require blood tests afterwards as I am rhesus- so would probably have to go to hospital anyway. My SIL used a private midwife for her whole pregnancy/homebirth and it cost around £4K, so I'm not sure how posters on the other thread were quoting £8k. I'm originally from Scotland if it makes a difference.

Your situation sounds quite complicated, but for British citizens temporarily working abroad, you are right that the important figure is 90 days in the UK. If you go over that you pay tax here, because you are deemed to still be domiciled here. You might need to find out if there is a different between domicile and residency.

To be honest your situation sounds sufficiently complicated that you need proper professional advice.

If you are UK resident then you can use the NHS. Even if you live abroad for 20 years and then move back, you can use NHS from day 1 of becoming resident again. You are not going to have to "prove" UK residency to the IR- the rules are set up to stop people falsely claiming they're not resident. Therefore, providing you're happy to pay tax in UK as a resident (i.e. on worldwide income vs just UK income) you'll be fine. However, the issue is that this may also impact your husband's residency status because the IR may then say he is also UK resident due to close ties with UK (UK resident spouse) so you need to consider the tax implications of that. If he's a super high earner it might actually be cheaper to just go private, especially as it may have multi-year implications.

If you go over that you pay tax here, because you are deemed to still be domiciled here. Resident, not domiciled

Domicile and residency are completely different. It's almost impossible to prove you're a non-dom in the UK if you are British. Residency is much more flexible, and the 90 day rule is one of the tests.

Thank you for your replies. No my DH is not a super high earner and he has made nowhere near the threshold for income tax, so it wouldn't really be an issue if he was charged NI as well. He is self employed/ has a uk ltd company so he already knows he needs to pay tax on any income he gets from there. At least this makes me a bit more hopeful that I am not being completely unreasonable.