UK Spouse visa: £18,600 income, before or after tax?

Another commonly asked question in our practice. The short answer is “before tax”, otherwise it would be both unfair and incomparable with the income received abroad, in a country with a different tax system (or absence of tax, as the case may be in some Middle Eastern countries).
 

With salary it is simple: salary before tax. With income from self-employment, it is profit (income less expenses) for a sole trader. For a company director it is gross salary and/or net dividends, net dividends being ones after the company’s tax but before personal tax). We have extensive experience in working with self-employed visa applicants and their spouses, after all we are the immigration entrepreneurs!

 

 

With the property rental income it gets more interesting. Amount of £18,600 (or equivalent in the foreign currency) is the monies paid by the tenant, before an estate agent’s commission and without taking into account mortgage and maintenance expenses. This is different from what the taxman at HMRC considers as income because they mean profit.  
 

Even more interesting is scholarship or stipend, such as for PhD students, we note there are many posts on the likes of The Guardian and The Telegraph about the students struggling to meet the £18,600 threshold, although they (the articles there) often suggest that only the British spouse’s income can be counted, which is not true in many cases. The scholarship is usually tax free, so in this case the amount used for the purpose of visa application is not the amount of scholarship. It is an equivalent of what would have been a ‘before tax’ amount if it were a salary. Confusing? If the scholarship is £15,800 per annum, tax-free, then before you despair that it is not enough you should know that £15,800 for the visa application will be treated as £18,600!
 

If you have other scenarios, such as working for an agency/umbrella company, or working on commission or having variable income, or have several jobs or sources of income, please contact us and we will help.
 

For an individual advice or to make an application please contact us: info@1st4immigration.com or visit  http://www.1st4immigration.com/index.php
 

If you are an Immigration Adviser or a Solicitor please visit our immigration Training and CPD website: www.1st4immigration.com/training We have a weekend OISC Level 1 course every month, a Saturday Points-Based System course every month and we also have online training courses, including Online OISC Level 1 course and courses focusing on the British Citizenship and Spouse/Partner visas. All our training courses are CPD-accredited with CPD credit accepted by  OISC.