‘That seeing they might not see’

We commented recently (‘McCavity’s not there’ – posted 7th February 2025) on HMRC’s apparent reluctance to provide easy access to useful guidance on tax legislation. In writing the second edition of M^cKie on Statutory Residence, which we expect to publish later this year, we looked for the ‘residence status checker’, an online tool which HMRC has provided for some time which is designed to give a taxpayer an indication of whether he or she was UK resident for a year by posing a number of questions. It is a helpful tool and one which used to be easily found. Now, however, it is difficult to actually locate it. It does not appear on the list of online tools and calculators available to a taxpayer on HMRC’s or other Government websites. After much searching we found it at www.gov.uk/tax-foreign-income/residence.