Global mobility services

Decisions about employees’ cross-border working arrangements have profound cost, administrative and reporting implications for businesses, and tax and social security implications for the employees.

Our experienced team of global mobility specialists advises across a broad range of scenarios, from supporting employers seeking to expand into or out of the UK to helping businesses meet international withholding and reporting obligations. An important part of our service is to support assignees with their personal tax affairs under expatriate programmes, ensuring they can focus on their roles rather than their tax affairs.

We work closely with counterparts across our international network to support all cross-border worker requirements, ensuring your policies and processes are robust and identifying tax planning opportunities to save costs.

We work with you to design a fair and tax-efficient assignment package and mobility policy to support employees accepting an overseas posting. If assignees are being asked to relocate from a higher or lower tax jurisdiction, we can help you design a tax equalisation strategy to make an employee’s decision to relocate tax-neutral. We also review and advise on the social security implications for assignees working across multiple jurisdictions.

We and our international network can advise on optimising your payroll arrangements for cross-border individuals and assist with administering any modified, shadow or local payrolls.

Payroll arrangements may vary according to several factors:

• It is best practice to report UK inbound tax-equalised expatriates on a separate Appendix 6 modified payroll
• It may be possible to prevent double taxation on payroll earnings by applying for arrangements that restrict payroll tax withholding to earnings that relate to UK workdays or by enabling employers to claim foreign tax credits via payroll
• It may be necessary to operate concurrent payrolls to report employees' earnings on both home and host country payrolls
• Depending on the characteristics of outbound assignments, the payroll structure and what should be reported in the UK may differ
• Social security may need to be operated on remuneration delivered in both home and host country locations

We support you with reporting obligations aside from payroll reporting, such as for business visitors from overseas or employment-related securities provided to cross-border workers.

With our international network we can help with your assignees’ tax return preparation. We can also educate assignees on managing their tax compliance obligations, including taking advantage of local tax reliefs. We can do this by carrying out tax consultation briefings and providing your employees with reference documents.