… To be considering leaving the UK?

[globalnomad25]

We have been considering leaving, even if only for a few years. Many of our clients have already gone or are planning it, and some of our friends too.

I’m not sure where we’d go: UAE, Portugal, Jersey, Ireland, Canada, Australia? We don’t currently want to move to the US, even though that would probably make the most sense from a business/client point of view.

For those out there who have already left, how has it gone? Was it a horrible mistake or are you glad you did it?

For those also thinking about it, where would you go?

Kids are school-aged and smart and used to international travel as our work already takes us all over, although they’d miss their friends (as would we). We aren’t English so our family is already based all over the place, although we visit them frequently.

We’ve been in Portugal for over 20 years. It hasn’t always been easy, and we may move elsewhere at some point, but we have had a lovely lifestyle.

It is now much harder than when we arrived, and also much more expensive, particularly for cars and property

Just as an aside, many of the forest fires that break out are set deliberately. Every year arsonists are caught and prosecuted.

Family and friends?

You said There are FAR worse places to live, and some that are OK, but no better than the UK! which indicates that you think there is no better place to live than the UK.

I’m thinking about going. Mainly school fees and the fact it is now so difficult to earn a high take home salary. I’ve just earnt a £68k bonus and I’ll see about £30k of it. I’m fed up of being told I’m privileged as though I am to blame for everything wrong. I feel like a cash tap and have had enough. Wages are low in this country and I can earn significantly more elsewhere where my education and skill set are valued. It’s not just income tax but all the stealth taxes too. My eldest will be going to uni soon - if we leave our house will rent for around £60k pa which will be v minimal uk tax as dh and I will have no other uk income. That will pay uni fees and accommodation with money left over for next child. I currently earn more than I ever have (more than double a decade ago) yet have never felt so worried about money. Meanwhile the streets are filthy, the local shop gets robbed so often I won’t let the kids go there alone, the roads are full of potholes etc etc.

We did and we love it, particularly the kids actually. Like i said in my previous post there are of course positives and negatives to each country but on balance for higher earners we are much happier in SG. We 'faffed' around for a few years deciding but it was the VAT on school fees that pushed us to finally make the move. If people have the right professional skill set, it may take time but if you do go looking you can find jobs abroad and company's will even sponsor your visa and moving costs. The right opportunity will come! Good luck to those looking to move.

Honestly, comparing high rate taxpayers to battered wives? That won't grant you sympathy and rightly so.

The reason a majority of the tax is paid by a minority of the population is that it's paid by the people who have the money. This is the cost of inequality. The core issues in the UK are stagnant wages and low productivity, things the Tories never did a thing about. Now, have both the Tories and Labour made mistakes with tax policy? Yes (the £100K cliff and the drag on tax bands for example). But the core problem is going to remain.

One thing about living in the US; you can see where your low tax paradise really takes you when you compare states. I'm quite happy to live in the tax-and-spend Northeast when I see Florida. And if we had chosen to go to Canada, I would have done so because I like it and I would have accepted the bargain whereby we would pay more in tax and in return we would get more services.

Rich people here make the assumption that having their own money will insulate them from poor government services, and then they find out that some can't be so easily replaced. Ask those poor families in Texas who may have lost their children because of all the cuts at NOAA.

Personally, and our decision was much more complicated than economics, I would never have wanted to go to one of those countries where we would be permanent expats and never settle. It would be one thing for us as adults but not for our children.

And again, higher earners aren’t just threatening it, they’re already actually doing it. The UK has one of the highest rates of wealth flight in the world, if not the highest.

I personally prefer living outside of the UK, and I do indeed have a better lifestyle now than I did when I lived there. I doubt anyone contemplating moving, or moving, is expecting utopia, rather a country that offers a better lifestyle for them than they have in the UK. It’s fine if it wouldn’t be better according to you, because, unless you’re the one emigrating, it doesn’t need to be.

Fucking hell that might be the crassest post I have ever read. An I am speaking as a HNW expat.

We have left, not because we hate the UK but because we wanted to live somewhere else which is better for us. In our case, Canada. We are lucky enough to have the money and passports to have some choices.

And again the scaremongering is tedious,0.5% leaving is negligible. It’s not actually that easy to move wealth.

A cash tap- hardly! Nobody needs a £68k bonus or deserves one more than other hard working people who don’t get them. Lots of people get bonuses that are far smaller on wages far smaller and lose a lot in tax on them. It’s part of being a society. The simple greed shown by some on here is pretty sad.

And vat on school fees would have cost you an extra £3k, moving for that just sounds like petulance. 🙄

You really don’t know that. To be a net tax payer you don’t need to be earning a fortune. What you need is a career that pays above the average salary bracket which many don’t. Are you suggesting nurses and teachers get evening jobs to understand your “plight” and you’re more deserving / hardworking than them?Many people in the UK are net payers and do not have this innate sense of greed.

Tax is being spent on ridiculous things HS2 bat tunnel, homing strangers who cross the channel in droves, then no policing or justice - wait years for your court case, poor education and people dying early (without doubt) when you have to wait years for operations - we can't even repair our roads, let alone build any.

A bottomless pit and no improvement for our children, in fact probably worse for 20 years or so, then maybe things might have changed.

Just be honest - you don’t get it but you wish you earnt enough to be able to understand

The destructive crab in a bucket mindset is such a sad thing about the UK

You don’t know what we earn or what we wish for.😊

The labour government of the 1970s tried taxing the wealthy to the hilt and they all left- Switzerland or The Bahamas was the place of choice then. It led to UK joining the EEC as it was then -being called the sick man of Europe.

Fair. The joys of anonymity on the internet !

Agree with last line.

But other countries are welcoming the wealthy with open arms though- see golden visas, investor visas etc

You should explore all your options. Good luck

As we’ve established you’re not always better off for a variety of reasons including financial hence the actual very small numbers actually doing it.

I’m suspecting somebody quibbling over an extra £3k in school fees might find Switzerland a tad pricey. Schools fees can be double those in the uk.

Highest exodus of millionaires of any country worldwide currently. And it's expected that in 2025 we'll have the highest loss of millionaires of any country in the last decade.

The UK does like to go out on a limb and do things other countries don't (eg Brexit, taxing education).

And other reports say otherwise.

Millionaires don’t quibble over school fees. Just saying.

Just trot off and do it,it’s like a petulant child threatening to run away over and again.🙄

So you don't know what it feels like in the UK right now. When the government are deliberately rabble -rousing against you. And NHS doctors are denying children mental health treatment for being 'too rich'.

Well 0.5% isn't negligible when the top 1% pay 30% of income tax. And if you imagine their high salaries are some kind of sleight of hand, you're dreaming. They get paid much more because their skills and work bring much more economic value. That's why other countries are offering them visas. So it's not just income tax you need to worry about - it's GDP.