When James and Sarah Glyn retired to Monaco in 2005, they did not expect to be charged £5.5 million by HMRC after receiving £29 million from selling his family property portfolio.
The couple returned regularly to London for Jewish festivals and traditional Friday night suppers with their grown-up children.
Sarah Glyn’s cooking was legendary with family and friends.
Revenue and Customs maintained that despite his address his heart remained in London.
HMRC claimed their fondness for their London home and continued close contact with their children and with friends was evidence that the Glyns had never really lost their UK residence and should, therefore, pay full UK taxes.
Mrs Glyn had only reluctantly given up her role as Chairman of Jewish charity – the Women's International Zionist Organisation – and had had “mixed feelings” about leaving her home, HMRC claimed, arguing that the couple's regular returns to Britain so she could cook for friends and family on Friday nights and Jewish feast days showed that, in their hearts, they had never left.
The couple's twin Mercedes cars had remained in London and Mr Glyn had applied for a residents parking permit, they added.
A tax tribunal, however, has ruled that Mr Glyn, 64, had had intended to make Monaco their “home in every sense” and had done so “for various personal reasons, going well beyond merely camping abroad to avoid tax,” the judge noted.
Judge Nowlan said the couple had purchased two high-end flats in Monaco and had “unquestionably acquired a habitual abode in Monaco.”
Although Mr Glyn returned to Britain 22 times in the 2005/06 tax year, that was well below the 90-day limit for overseas residency.
He ruled that there had been “a distinct break” with the UK.
Friday night dinners were "an ingrained feature of Jewish family life" and the judge observed: "It seems odd to suppose that sustaining Mr Glyn's claim to have become non-UK resident should require that the invariable Jewish tradition should be abandoned or artificially restricted".
Mr Glyn had told the tribunal that his 30 years of managing the family’s £60 million property empire had been one of “drudgery”. At the age of 21, he had found himself heading up the Milverton Group Limited following the sudden death of his father.
When he retired, his brother set about selling off the family's property holdings and, in May 2005, Mr Glyn received a £29 million dividend.
The tribunal heard that, after the birth of a grandchild in 2009, Mrs Glyn was drawn back to the UK and the couple returned to their London home permanently in May 2010.
