As of April, all UK workers that are not officially domiciled in the country will have to pay tax on all foreign income over £1,000. Those who do not pay face losing personal tax allowances such as reductions for married couples or blind person's allowance.
The new legislation was originally brought in to target wealthy foreign workers, most of whom work in finance, but the Association of Labour Providers (ALP) claims that the government has not considered how the tax will affect workers at the other end of the salary spectrum.
According to ALP, the food industry will be particularly vulnerable, as it employs a large number of foreign migrant workers every year.
These workers now risk being taxed on income and property abroad - their primary residence - when they only come to the UK to work for a few weeks at a time, the ALP claims.
"All the attention on the non dom issue has been on the better off sections of the community who would have no difficulty in paying additional tax," said ALP chairman Mark Boleat in statement. "However, the real losers will be low paid migrant workers who work part of the year in the UK and the rest of the year in their home country."
The ALP also claims that the UK government has failed to consider certain boundaries, such as how to establish who counts as a short-term migrant, or how it will inform each migrant worker what they are expected to pay in tax.
"Currently the food industry should therefore be lobbying to ensure that low income workers are excluded from this requirement", spokesperson David Camp told FoodProductionDaily.com.
According the skills council Improve, the UK food and drink manufacturing sectors do indeed depend on foreign nationals, who now make up an estimated 10 per cent of the workforce.
In raw figures published by the council last December, there were 22,900 foreign nationals estimated to be working in the industry in 2003, a figure that grew to 35,600 in 2005, an increase of 55 per cent.
And about 77 per cent of these workers are employed in manual roles - so will be paid the minimum wage, Improve said.
Last week, the UK Food and Drink Foundation urged the Chancellor of the Exchequer to support the industry in his tax budget, due to be made public tomorrow.
Melanie Leech, FDF director general, said that with the UK economy slowing, and consumers becoming nervous about the global credit crunch and inflation, the Chancellor must not undermine a sector "that provides core economic stability to the UK."
According to the FDF, the food industry is the UK's largest manufacturing sector, generating £21bn (€27bn) of Gross Value Added to the UK food chain each year. The FDF also estimates that the sector employs and provides career opportunities for almost 470,000 people.
