Would you leave UK if Reeves starts taxing wealth

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Just that really. Wondering if anyone else considering it. DCs both at Uni in next year. We had thought of living abroad a few months each year anyway but now UK is getting worse and worse for tax. Not super wealthy but millionaires on paper and with various investments. Been to advisor and would have IHT bill of £1 mill + if we stayed which makes me so angry. Worked hard for so many years to provide for our family and feels too harsh.
Spoke to our eldest about this and she even said so many of her friends have parents who have moved abroad in last few years. We are lucky we have options for countries, feels hard but then a flight is actually fast than driving up and down to where DC are at Uni so makes me wonder.....

Feel so fed up the constant threats to those who have saved for future and not got into debt through spending on material things or holidays, tech etc etc....

For those saying that some other European countries have higher taxes. Yes, they do, but they also have universal high quality public services. As someone caught in the shitty 60% tax trap who has had to pay for private medical services when the NHS has let my family and I down and pay for one of my DC to attend private school because our local state school is shit, who sees colleagues paying £2000 - £3000 per month per child in nursery fees (because they are effectively subsidising the “free” hours that successive governments do not fund properly), the UK offers a shit deal for higher earners. For example, my German colleagues pay approx 250 Euros per month in childcare. Unless people wake up to this situation, nothing is going to change and we will not have decent growth.

So, to answer your question, yes I would definitely consider leaving. We have about £500-£600k equity in our house but much of that is due to us paying part of the mortgage off (on this and our previous houses). Plus we have paid about £70k in stamp duty as we have moved up the property ladder. We have paid our fair share of tax already.

There is a real societal problem; the truly rich (the billionaires and the global corporations) don't really pay tax. And they will never pay tax because they have the ability to shift their assets around across national borders and to hide its existence. So, although they are most able to afford to pay large tax bills (and morally ought to pay large tax bills) they are legally able to avoid contributing by manipulating geographical location and 'profitability' to save themselves money.

Nobody from any party has been able to deal with this. The right wing's love of Brexit was partly because the EU was looking at introducing some harmonisation of tax regimes and rich Brits would therefore lose some of their ability to avoid their responsibilities

The rich do pay tax. Much much more tax than you do. Just not as much as you feel entitled to of their money

Yet someone rich doesn't cost the state any more than someone poor - in fact far less in our redistributive society where so many hand outs are given. And they'll often pay for things like education and health themselves rather than use state provision.

Why on earth should they give you huge amounts of their money? It's theirs, not yours.

How about if everyone pays in a fixed tax amount - a poll tax, rather than a rate. And everyone who contributes is entitled to use the state services which those taxes fund. That would be fair. We wouldn't have much in the way of state services, but everyone would be 'paying their way' fairly.

The UK isn't a family. Rachel Reeves has made it quite clear that she despises me and will do what she can to harm my family - and plenty of people seem to share her views. I'm not willing to pool resources with the other 70 million people in the UK any more.

Sometimes the rich let their dogs lick the sores of the beggars at the gates too, don't they, which is very good of them.

😂😂

you've seen the amount of support given to absolutely anyone who doesn't feel like working in the UK? Even those who just stepped off a boat, having come here illegally.

Free house, free scooter, money for food and electricity and Starbucks, free cinema tickets....

Where will you go?
If you feel despised by many here, I can see that a fair reason to leave.

I'm stuck here for now for DD's education. If it gets much worse, I'd consider moving at the next education transition point - but since that would be pretty disruptive for DD I'll only do it if I think the UK is getting so bad that it's in her interests to finish her education and settle for her adult life in another country. It's not quite there yet, but not that far off.

If the current situation had happened 10 years ago, we would certainly have moved. If we stick around to finish DDs education, then we'll move at that point for 10-20 years whilst DD is in her early career years. I know from experience that is a sweet-spot for living in a different country than family.

We'll go to a European country. I'm a native speaker, but DH and DD aren't so I'm thinking hard about where language wouldn't be too much of a problem - either international school for DD and international company for DH, or a stepping stone in one of the EU countries where most people speak some English, or maybe just some very intensive language learning!

My family are settled in several different countries, so I know what being across a border from family involves.

😂

Already did.

The fact that the UK is the only country in the G10 that has experienced a net loss of liquid millionaires (actually the highest rate of loss of HNWI in the world at that) for nearly ten years straight would suggest that there are indeed better options out there.

https://taxfoundation.org/research/all/global/2024-international-tax-competitiveness-index/

Golly. I don't think I've ever heard someone suggest one universal, fixed rate of tax in my life! Not even Farage is suggesting such a thing.

Just doing very rough calculations, that would suggest that everyone of working age (18-65), given today's governmental spending, would pay £24,000 in tax. Currently average gross annual earnings are £37,000 for full time employees and £13,000 for part time.

Obviously, governmental spending would have to be slashed to the bone and there would be people dying on the streets, homeless, unfed and sick. Crime rates would shoot up because of the need and because there wouldn't be enough funds to run a police force. My guess is that civil unrest would quickly follow, and those that could would leave the country, cursing the poor for ruining the country.

Yup, that would be fair.

And, of course, sensible. In fact, even the very wealthy owe their standard of living and their comfort to the existence of a functional, stable economy society. We saw during covid, the importance of delivery drivers, supermarket workers, bin-men etc the low paid who don't earn as much as you want them to pay in tax.

There are many different ways of calculating 'fairness'. You suggest a single flat sum. Others might suggest a single percentage (there are few people on here who, when talking about finances in a marriage suggest splitting costs equally, when one person is earning lots and the other is a SAHM or on a significantly lower wage). The political consensus across all parties for generations has been a progressive tax system; so you're quite the outlier.

You say you feel despised. You're probably right

@strawberrybubblegum that’s not true re council tax as authorities have different rules - DS1 gets PIP and UC, I get carers allowance and DS2 has student loan but we still have to pay full council tax. £200 a month. The rules are all occupants are students, single person discount or severe physical disability for a discount but not 100% discount.

@emptyandsad There are many different ways of calculating 'fairness
Exactly what I was pointing out

You say you feel despised. You're probably right
And you are perfectly demonstrating the Dunning-Kruger effect.

@strawberrybubblegum

"And you are perfectly demonstrating the Dunning-Kruger effect."

Lolz

No country can tax these individuals @Emptyandsad ; they are beyond the reach of the tax authorities because they are not salaried and their bankers work very hard to keep their assets obscure and accounts opaque. The USA gets closest, by demanding that all citizens worldwide file a return.

HNWI and families do pay tax, on their terms, and as countries are keen to attract their investments and expenditures, there are deals available. You too can get residency in Italy for an annual contribution of €200,000 in lieu of income tax.

First World Problems OP!

Move if you want to… but I earn far less than you, and have no worries about inheritance tax etc… instead I worry about ever increasing and unaffordable basics despite being a ‘higher rate tax payer’.

Our country is in a financial mess after 14 years of a Conservative government, and yes taxes need to increase to fund basic services.

I guess you need to pay up or move out!

In what way have public services improved while business has been tanking because of the taxes imposed on it?

Since bond yields have been higher under Labour than under Truss, in what way has Labour secured confidence in lenders?

In what way are we better off than under the Tories?

Public Services haven’t improved because Labour promised to keep to Conservative fiscal rules and not increased taxation yet!

But I do note NhHS waiting lists have started to reduce!

Business are tanking because of Brexit… it’s hit our GDP hard…, we should join the customs union with the EU asap to help them!

Finally businesses need healthy staff… staff with affordable accommodation, so yes we all need to pay more taxes!

I think that's a very fair question. Many would say that, as the Labour Party under Starmer has moved right to fight off the Farage threat, it has failed to provide voters with sufficient difference and that he hasn't provided traditional Labour voters with the reassurance they want.

One of the peculiarities about our current political situation is that the traditional left/right paradigm is breaking down and no longer really works. Red Wall voters have moved from Labout to Reform which would have been unthinkable 20 years ago

Thank you for answering. But…

Labour has increased taxation, through very big NI increases on businesses mostly, but some others too. It has been diverting money into the public sector. Nothing has improved. Waiting lists are not reducing.

Businesses are themselves saying that NI increases are causing major problems. Unemployment is up.

It is fanciful to suppose that money thrown at the NHS (which didn’t stop the doctors striking again, and nurses are set to strike) will give us a healthier, more productive workforce in any appreciable or measurable way, at least not within 50 years.

Businesses are themselves saying that NI increases are causing major problems.

Why is it businesses in many European countries can contribute higher social security taxes resulting in people having better healthcare models & pension provision?

The rich do pay tax. Much much more tax than you do. Just not as much as you feel entitled to of their money

Proportionally some pay their share, many don't.

To answer the first question, public services have not improved in (roughly) 20 years.

Different question: why did you expect public services to improve?

No one is voting to have even more money taken out of their earnings via tax because we all think we pay plenty taxes, via income tax, council tax and VAT. My post tax income is already shaved away. I still work a bit, I am 70 so have SP, and a small pension from a job that, frankly, pays out a lot more than than I expected, but still under £300 pm. The decision to start a proper personal pension plan for me and DH that we took 30 years ago NOW looks a financial life changer.

My point is that you need to do it now, at 30 or preferably younger-- which is the point when the cost of having a family really bites hard. No easy suggestions.

And when you reach the other end of parenthood, hopefully kids successfully launched and thriving, all the small change you've dumped into pensions and savings are suddenly not going to make you rich, but they ought to make life smoother. But along the way, some people are scammed out of their money; some people's kids turn out unpleasant and grabby. There are a million routes to misery!

No, but I'll be handing any money I have, on to my ds as fast as I can.

I've paid for myself and my ds, our housing, taken the CoL in my stride, been a lone parent for 15 years, never claimed anything. I've paid 40% tax. At one point I was paying 62.5% incremental rate (tax, NI, loss of child benefit) because I dared to earn £54k as a lone parent. And now this lot want to take more.

I've had enough.

Money currently been put into the NHS will try to keep parity with what we had. The health inflation is because we are getting older and have more complex problems that are medicalised . To get the workforce healthier would need alot more money. And as seen on here people don't want to pay taxes at current rates.
This is the new norm , very few politicians want to yet acknowledge the demographic issues that this country and many others have . People will have to get used to it . The workers will get less as the population ages more will be needed to pay for this. Either taxes go up or cut the money spent on pensioners. The latter isn't an option is a non starter politically.