Wealth is draining out of the UK

[Ifmenhadperiods]

I was at an event with business people the other week. One of the high net worths said to me that no wealthy foreigner he knows will stay in the UK long term. He is local but says anyone with foreign connections and wealth is fleeing abroad - and taking their businesses with them. That is the chat around his dinner table in Holland Park.

One indisputable piece of evidence I guess is the massive slump in companies that list in the UK. We also have so few pension funds investing in UK business. Personally I don’t blame them: my own shares ISA is invested in the US and has grown by 30% in the last year, a figure UK shares just can’t compete with. Most of our FTSE top companies are in legacy industries like fossil fuels while elsewhere they’re in tech and innovation as well
as traditional companies.

Several friends have left here and gone to the US in the last decade and they say the lifestyle is excellent (and they earn far more, working in tech).

I have also spoken to friend’s older DC (6th formers) and some who have had offers from Oxford and Cambridge are rejecting them in favour of Ivy League schools.

Apparently Ivy leagues are FAR better at getting students to think about their careers from day one. Oxbridge is amazing at teaching you the subject in an academically rigorous way, but Ivy leagues pair you up with business investors if you do a degree such as economics. They have fees assistance for households earning up to 400k US dollars. Here you can’t get student loans if you have more than about £50k in household income.
I know the fees are higher there but they also have more scholarships in the US.

We are about to tax private schools. A popular policy with the public. But again, apparently the wealthy foreigners who can afford this tax are worried it will shake out the middle class Brits they want their kids to go to school with! They don’t just want their kids to go to school with foreign and British super elites. They’re quite fond of the eccentric Brits.

It seems every way you turn, there’s little incentive to make money especially with the cliff edge in income taxation. And the worst thing is it’s understandable because of the massive levels of wage stagnation we have to subsidise through working tax credits (no real wage growth for 20 years!).

We don’t want immigrants but we have no one to pay for our massive welfare bill which is made up mostly of a triple locked state pension and grossly inefficient health system.

If you’re lucky enough to have a bit of spare cash, forget moving up the property ladder, owning a holiday home or a rental (tax hell lies in all those paths).

Can anyone shake me out of this pessimism? Of course I know we are lucky not to be in Syria or Afghanistan or Gaza. But this is about the decline of the UK rather than where we are compared to truly volatile or oppressive countries. I genuinely don’t want to emigrate but fear we - along with anyone who was once comfortable but never wealthy - are going to have a very uncomfortable retirement - if I make it that far - and our DCs will face a future in a country that will continue to get poorer, with the entrepreneurial class deserting us.

A lot of my friends and business associates are doing/considering seriously as they preempting a Labour government.

And we all know what that means for the future prosperity of our country.

Exorbitant taxes, anti business and clobbering anything that works in this country such as private schools. Labour will not be happy until they have killed ambition and success and we are all at rock bottom equally, sharing the misery.

We should have done what the USA and others do and had an exit tax in place decades ago.

They force overpayment by making it so very difficult to supply them, they chase for the goods, but then put massive administrative hurdles in the way - so they pay more, it's very sad.

Its something that has grown inside the NHS, not at the behest of government.

I know one supplier who sells the same item into schools and hospitals, schools pay 99p per unit, NHS £14, bonkers!!

Interestingly I chatted over a pint on this issue with a mate who is an MP, he agreed that everyone of every colour knows the issues with the NHS, but to unpick it would require the removal or whole rafts of management and administration within the NHS as effectively its management top heavy, so to return it to efficiency, you would have a huge redundancy bill and also in his words "put loads of people out of work who are trained for nothing else, what would they do"

Therefore no one will fix the issue, it could only be done by real sweeping change, which would be deeply unpopular, even if the results would be better long term.

The craft skills needed by the film and TV producers are flourishing in the UK. Talking to a friend in London (who has an independent bookshop) she was telling me that multiple Netflix producers living nearby are a significant percentage of her customers. And at the sharp end, I am looking at a film crew across the valley working on the next series of a Netflix production that topped the global streaming figures on release.

And at the same time our local uni, that was pre eminent in Film & TV, supplying the BBC with many crew, have just cut all the courses and closed the department

Sad!

I can't say I notice where the uk wealth went - it certainly never trickled down to me over the last few decades so it leaving is hardly worth writing about

The NHS is run and funded by the government. It cannot function otherwise. If it could, why do you think staff strike? If it works as you suppose it does, couldn't they just award themselves the appropriate payrise? All organisations run by the government have similar, inefficient themes. If poor management has been allowed to fester then it's simply the government's fault, whichever government happens to be in power at the time.

There are more millionaires leaving the UK than arriving. It isn’t merely a threat being leveled, it’s actively happening. The UK has the third highest rate of wealth flight, and it is indeed a problem.

Yet it’s successive Conservative governments that have destroyed our manufacturing base and housing market and we currently have the highest taxation for 70 years and the worst public services in living memory. It’s difficult to see how much lower we can sink, my perception is that we’re at rock bottom right now.

@PropertyManager , that's such atrocious logic, it's criminal. Why? Which university is guilty of such cultural vandalism?

I dont give a fuck.
I work full time in care industry, yet still don't cover basic expenses. These rich parasites dont pay proper taxes. They mostly put their money off shore, and are more interested in asset stripping the country than investing in it. They can fuck off

I don’t think it is something that has no impact. Funding for example and jobs

I’m wondering though do you work? Is it public sector? Because in private sector we can see businesses growing or not and that it matters

I do work and I am pretty sure that the richest people in the uk are not contributing to my employment

Where rich people get involved they tend to asset strip and leave the dregs to fail or survive without their support

The country is struggling not because the rich want to leave but because the wealthy are so super wealthy and all the money that could help the country isn't going to do that

Are you in the public sector?

I see small businesses, start ups etc grow and too right I want that to stay. They are future clients which keep people I know in work.

👏🏻

Not sure what you are aiming for with your post OP. You sound right wing but given the Tories are the ones who have cocked the economy up, you aren't going to make anyone want to vote for them.

It’s alarming to say the very least OP. I know of several high net worth individuals that moved or are moving to Dubai as the UK is now no longer viable for many businesses. The cities especially are no longer feeling safe or clean, there’s an energy of decay that has seeped into the streets certainly since Covid. Areas where money spends money such as luxury cars, property, fashion, hospitality are all saying that there is a problem.

I work in luxury high end retail and 2024 has seen a sharp drop in revenue, I’m talking -30% or more for many of the luxury brands (with very few exceptions). The UK economy has taken a massive hit so aspirational shoppers have cut back (like in many countries). The deeper problem for the UK is wealthy tourists are now shopping in Europe for tax free since the government delivered a self inflicted blow by scrapping it here. With Brexit, UK consumers are also eligible for tax free in Europe too, so we are losing sales on big ticket purchases from our local customers who are instead purchasing watches, bags, shoes when on holiday.

This means luxury retail will start to slowly regress once businesses realise the UK market is no longer the thriving destination it once was. The big brands are too heavily invested in London so the impact will be more noticeable in places like Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool.

Those saying it has no relation to the vast majority of the population need to be more pragmatic and see the wider picture, wealth leaving the UK is bad for everyone.

The problem with your point is that it’s actually the tax paying wealthy individuals who are looking to leave- taking their taxes they pay to HMRC with them. The tax dodgers are already floating around in their yachts offshore and that will never change. It’s the good ones that we do not want to lose.

Posters cheering it on are not thinking it through. Majority is yanbu which is a bit more encouraging, but still.

I think we still are attractive in many ways but it’s not something to wish away, madness

It's only bad for everyone if those businesses were paying high UK taxes which let's face it, many are not.

I’d love to know who the Tories think will be voting for them in future, because my peers are >35 but top 1-2% earners - and we don’t relate at all to them.

The country has decimated the middle classes through property speculation and poor productivity.

All wealth earned in the UK needs to be taxed before it leaves. Then it doesn't matter if rich people try to leave in order to avoid tax.

Some inconvenient truths you threw out in your post. I am for the second time leaving a once very prosperous place to start again. I need to take my children out of here pronto. Old, cold and poor does not appeal to me.

Enough is enough of paying taxes for the ones that do not work . Also for taking the hit for the wealthier that do not pay enought taxes.

Not just the super rich. Anyone with half a brain and the ability to would do well to leave the UK after all the damage the Tories have done to the country .

Posters cheering it on are not thinking it through.

Cheering what on?