CA 1976, 51 TC 522; [1976] STC 409; [1976] 1 WLR 1178; [1976] 3 All ER 353
A Canadian national came to the UK in 1932 to join the RAF and married a British woman in 1946. They made regular visits to Canada until his father died in 1960. The following year, he retired and tried to persuade his wife to emigrate to Canada but she did not wish to leave and he resigned himself to the fact that he would have to remain in the UK for the rest of his wife’s life. He made a Canadian will declaring his country of domicile as being Canada and he always maintained his desire to return to Canada in the event of his wife’s death. The Inland Revenue contended that he had acquired a domicile of choice in the UK.
It was held that there was never an intention to make the UK his permanent home and had not sufficiently severed his ties with Canada to lose his domicile of origin and had not acquired a domicile of choice in the UK.