UK Immigration: Impact of excessive single-trip absence (pandemic &amp; personal situation) on future Indefinite leave to remain application My wife intends to apply for UK Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) in Sep 2024 (10-year long residence route). However, there has been a recent big break in her stay in the UK due to personal &amp; pandemic reasons. She departed UK on 05 Feb 2020 to home country, India, to spend time with family due to miscarriage after fertility treatment. She intended to return to the UK after 59 days around early April 2020. Quite unexpectedly, both India &amp; UK went into pandemic lockdowns in Mar 2020. India has since suspended all scheduled international passenger flights indefinitely. Since Aug 2020, India has been running a repatriation flight program over several phases, but is not intended as a form of regular/scheduled passenger flight. As for me, I was stuck in the UK since Feb 05, 2020 &amp; could travel to India only in Nov 2020. I intended to spend 3-4 months in India, spending time with elderly family there. In April 2021, India was put on the UK's red list, and both my wife &amp; I scrambled back somehow to return to the UK on May 09, 2021. So, there exists a single-trip absence of 459 days. As per UKVI rules, in normal circumstances, this breaks the continuous residence requirements for the 10-year LR route (wherein a single absence should not exceed 180 days). However, I infer some possible exemptions through clauses CR2.3 (b) &amp; (c) of the UKVI immigration rules: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules/immigration-rules-appendix-continuous-residence Will UKVI allow a concession for this specific situation? We have the NHS doctor's note for the miscarriage &amp; fertility treatment, while pandemic-related travel disruptions are well known (and I presume no additional documentation is required).
Will UKVI allow a concession for this specific situation? Only your wife's UKVI caseworker can definitely answer this with any certainty, but as you say CR2.3 (b) does seem quite compelling but (c) less so - unless the medical records support her condition was &quot;life-threatening&quot; ...any period spent outside the UK will not count towards the 180-day limit if the absence was for any of the following reasons: [...] (b) travel disruption due to natural disaster, military conflict or pandemic; or (c) compelling and compassionate personal circumstances, such as the life-threatening illness of the applicant, or life-threatening illness or death of a close family member; [...]
Possibly. I wonder if you mean "convicted" rather than "arrested"? There is no way that he will be "arrested" because you don't accompany him ("arrested" is when he taken by the police before a trial). On the other hand, if he plans to call you as a witness for the defence, then your absence may mean he is convicted at his trial when otherwise he would be found innocent. The final possibility is that you might act as a character witness after conviction, and your absence may mean he is sent to jail rather than fined. It may be possible for you to write a witness statement describing what happened, and to have this notarized. On the other hand, the prosecution may well want to cross examine you. I am pretty sure you can write a character witness statement (saying, if true, that it's a first offence and that you have forgiven him, etc) and get it notarized. That might persuade a court to be lenient. I think you (as a couple) need to talk to his lawyer.
This is a tricky question on the intersection of visa and tax laws. It is tricky because every country can make its own rules that apply when you are in that country or do business in that country. Even within the EU, there is no uniform approach because freedom of movement merely covers the right to work in a country, but not the rules which have to be followed when doing so. Thus, you have to fall back to reading each individual country's rules and legislation. In general: Whether you are even allowed to work or which work activities are permitted depends on your visa or visa-free status. If you are a permanent resident or citizen of the UK, you can come to and work in every EEA country, until the end of the Brexit transition period, subject to the same rules as residents in that country. Often, visa-free visits or business visa allow some business activities such as attending meetings with clients or collecting information, but not performing actual work. If you're interested in what business activities the UK allows visitors from other countries to do, take a look at the visitor rules. Income tax may be due at the place of tax residency or where the income is generated/earned, in particular where you actually perform the work. There is a widespread belief that you only gain tax residency after staying in one country for 6 months, but this is misleading in the general case: every country makes its own rules, and income tax may be due even without (permanent) tax residency. The relevant countries (the country where you work and the country where you normally reside) might have a tax agreement that specifies where tax is due. Within the EU, it is fairly common that a person works in a different country than the one they reside in, so there is a well-developed network of tax treaties. Often, certain activities are exempt from local taxes, such as compensation for visiting researchers or regular employment. There's also a good chance that profit from independent work / business profits are only taxable at the place(s) where that enterprise has a permanent establishment – but it depends on the details. This section is based on the OECD model tax treaty (https://doi.org/10.1787/mtc_cond-2017-en) which most treaties follow closely. If no tax treaty exists that exempts your income from local taxation, you must consult the local tax laws. VAT rules are entirely different, and for B2B services are generally taxed at the location of the client (place of supply rules). But every country makes its own rules. Exception: within the EEA, cross-border B2B supply is always taxed at and by the client via the reverse-charge mechanism. So things can get quite tricky, and a business visitor should inform themselves beforehand what activities they are allowed to perform abroad and whether there are tax implications. is it any different from a UK author going travelling, taking lots and lots of notes, or even writing his/her next novel whilst in various locations, and publishing once returned to the UK? Here no tax implications arise because the travelling author is not paid during their travels, but they have to consider visa rules when performing their work. Such rules often have exemptions for artists. However, it depends on the rules of the travelled country. what basis does a government have for deciding &quot;where&quot; work was done? Each country is sovereign and can make its own rules. How would that apply if a team of software developers had a virtual &quot;pair programming&quot; session, with one in USA, one in UK, and one in the Far East ? &quot;Where&quot; has that software been written? It is not generally relevant where software was written, aside from copyright or export regulation issues which might have their own rules. Since each of the three programmers is working in their own country, no particular visa or income tax issues arise. However, if they have a common employer, the employer does have to consider the local employment laws regardless of where the employer is established, which may include paying some taxes in every country.
There is no general duty to carry your identity with you when inside the UK, nor to identify yourself to any official. Many UK citizens have no photographic proof of identity at all. (My parents did not for many years, until they obtained fresh passports.) I am confused where you could be stopped by immigration officers. If you appear at a UK Border without your passport, it is a real headache, but immigration can find your record on the computer and will, if you satisfy them you are a UK citizen, eventually admit you. (They have no power to deny entry to a British Citizen, and must be satisfied you are not a British citizen to deny you entry.) For clarity, in respect of some comments, I am not advising that anyone should do this, but I am saying in the worse case scenario if somehow you end up without documents you can still be looked up in the computer, and your identity can be checked at the UK Border without a passport. In general you are not required to identify yourself to a police officer, unless you are arrested. http://www.findlaw.co.uk/law/criminal/your_rights/500109.html If I am stopped and searched, do I have to give my name and address? Although the police will likely ask for your name and address, you are not required to give it unless the police arrest you or are reporting you for an offence. There are a small number of occasions when you may be required (by law) to identify yourself when you are simply going about your private business. If you are driving a vehicle the police may stop you and require you to identify yourself. If you do not have your driving licence, you may produce it at court at a later date; in the mean time the police can check your status by computer. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/part/VII/crossheading/powers-of-constables-and-other-authorised-persons/enacted?view=plain If you are travelling domestically inside the UK by air, the police can stop you and require photographic identification at or after the security check point under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/schedule/7?view=plain) However, I travel within Great Britain by air several times a month and usually do not bring anything more than a credit card and a change of clothes, and I have never had any problems. Most airlines will "advise" you to bring photographic ID. If however you do travel between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, immigration staff are often interested in your status then. It is wise to have photographic ID on such a journey.
No The argument is vacuous in any event because AFAIK all jurisdictions that enforce sex discrimination laws have parental leave (paid or unpaid), not maternity leave so a man is just as likely to need it as a woman. This, of course, raises the issue of discrimination by marital status (on the basis that unmarried people are arguably less likely to have children) or age (on the basis that people outside 'childbearing' age are less likely to have children; fortunately these types of discrimination are also illegal. Notwithstanding, the loopholess you think there are in the laws are simply not there. For example s14 "Discrimination in employment or in superannuation" of australia Sex Discrimination Act 1984 starts with: (1) It is unlawful for an employer to discriminate against a person on the ground of the person's sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, intersex status, marital or relationship status, pregnancy or potential pregnancy, breastfeeding or family responsibilities: Later in s30 "Certain discrimination on ground of sex not unlawful" it says: (2) (a) the duties of the position can be performed only by a person having particular physical attributes (other than attributes of strength or stamina) that are not possessed by persons of a different sex from the relevant sex; If the job requires excessive strength or stamina, then you test your recruits for the level of strength or stamina the job requires.
With an exception for non-EU visitors to Northern Ireland, they can't since 1 January 2021 following the withdrawal of the relevant concessions and schemes. The H.M. Revenue and Customs Brief 21... ..confirms the withdrawal of “airside” tax-free shopping in the UK and the withdrawal of the VAT Retail Export Scheme (VAT RES) from Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) when the Transition Period comes to an end on 31 December 2020. Tax free shopping (extra statutory concession 9.1): The tax-free shopping extra statutory concession (ESC 9.1) is published in VAT Notice 48. It allows retailers of goods sold in ports and airports to zero-rate sales to passengers departing for non-EU destinations. ESC 9.1 allows the retailer to be regarded as exporters of those goods and consequently zero rate the supply for VAT purposes. This concession will be withdrawn with effect from 1 January 2021 throughout the UK. VAT Retail Export Scheme (VAT RES): VAT RES allows non-EU visitors to the EU to recover the VAT on purchases they make on the high street which they take home with them in their luggage. This scheme will be withdrawn in Great Britain. Retailers in Northern Ireland, including those at ports or airports, will continue to be able to offer VAT RES to non-EU visitors to Northern Ireland, under the terms of the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Basically: what Flup said in his last paragraph (and so upvoted accordingly). Every one of the practitioners you named has an undergraduate degree from the UK, and an undergraduate degree from Canada. This, presumably, is because you're not permitted to practise law in most jurisdictions unless you have some kind of qualification in the law of that particular jurisdiction. The laws of each country, and moreover, the way in which cases are decided and in which each country's legal system works, varies so tremendously that you need to study the particulars for each jurisdiction before you can practice there. Regarding Canada: from this site: You must complete a Bachelor of Laws (L.L.B.) program or Juris Doctor (J.D.) program in order to qualify for bar membership in any Canadian province or territory. This generally takes three years to complete. In England and Wales, you can now take a law conversion course in place of an undergraduate law degree as a first stage towards being qualified. I suspect, however, looking at the dates of the judges you list, that the law conversion course wasn't an option at the time they got their qualifications, so their only option was a full undergraduate course. So the answer is: they each have two undergraduate qualifications, one from each jurisdiction, so that they could qualify to practise law in both jurisdictions.
The general rule is that the ability to have a valid divorce has nothing to do with where the marriage was entered into, or the citizenship of the parties. Usually, any jurisdiction with sufficient contacts with either member of the couple has jurisdiction to enter a divorce. Hence, generally, people get divorced in the place that they live. The problem in this scenario is step 5. I think that it is highly likely that the U.S. Embassy is simply wrong, unless there is some serious irregularity in step 4. An annulment after four years of marriage, as opposed to a divorce, is highly irregular and would not be allowed in the vast majority of jurisdictions. But, maybe there are facts and circumstances that make it otherwise. This fact pattern, while it on one hand sounds like a "for a friend" question based on real facts, also sounds like some important details that may be outcome determinative have been omitted.