![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() We could equalise stamp duty, so there was no longer a specific penalty for foreigners buying a property in this country. We could restore full non-dom status, turning the clock back to where we were when Tony Blair was prime minister so that wealthy foreigners could base themselves here but only pay tax on the money they bought into the country instead of their worldwide assets. With money more mobile than ever, surely the UK should be trying to attract the rich rather than push them out? After all, Australia now tops the rankings for inflows of high net worth individuals, closely followed by Singapore and the UAE, and we could easily match everything they offer if we chose to. In reality, it is easy to drive out the rich, but very hard to replace all the money you lose in the process. If they run a business, it leaves with them, and even if they don’t, they are less likely to invest in UK companies. Once somebody leaves the country, they are no longer creating any jobs, or buying anything, so the second round impact will be even worse.Īnd finally, we lose the investment they bring with them. Next, we lose not just the direct tax revenue but all the money they spend as well. The trouble is, even if the numbers are small, it can still make the country dramatically poorer.įirst, the bulk of income tax is paid by a tiny fraction of the total workforce (the highest earning 1pc pay 28pc of the total) so it only takes a small number to leave to dramatically reduce the amount the Government raises.Įvery high net worth individual who departs may well be taking £200,000 or more of tax revenue with them, and that starts to add up very quickly. ![]() Three or four thousand people may not matter very much out of a population of 68 million they will argue, and there will still be plenty of wealthy individuals left to tax. Sure, plenty of people will simply say good riddance. Paying for it all is hardly an attractive proposition. It demands higher and higher taxes on the wealthy to pay for an unreformed public sector that delivers almost nothing and a ballooning welfare bill for five million people who aren’t working. The only prospect of change is a Labour government that wants to impose even higher taxes. The burden increasingly falls on the rich, with the threshold for the top rate of tax reduced, with corporation tax going up by a third, and with stamp duty rising to punitive levels on properties worth more than £1m (and even higher if you happen to be foreign). The UK’s tax burden has risen to 70-year-highs, and yet still the Government is chronically short of money. It is hard to blame anyone for that decision. Of all the world’s major economies, we are now the one that rich people most want to leave. Shockingly, we have now overtaken Russia as a country that the rich are fleeing, and we are are also ahead of such pillars of stability as South Africa, Nigeria and Argentina. And the UK comes in at third, with an estimated loss of 3,200 millionaires over the course of the year. India is in second place with 6,500 departing. Henley & Partners this week released a table of the countries that wealthy individuals – which it defines as anyone with investable assets of more than $1m (£780,000) – are getting out of.Ĭhina, driven by President Xi Jinping’s crackdown on entrepreneurs, and the increased possibility of a conflict with the United States, tops the ranking with a net loss of 13,500 people. It is not the kind of league table that anyone would want to come anywhere near the top of. In fact, with global money more mobile than ever before, and with plenty of cash-rich investors on the move, the UK should be trying to attract the rich instead of driving them away, because we would all be a lot richer if we did. ![]()
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