Husband wants to move to dubai

[Dilemma87]

My husband is a businessman in property and with the recent proposed tax changes and new rules putting limits on how long he can keep doing things from the UK, he’s now saying he needs to move to Dubai and operate from there.

We actually have some friends there, and his business partner is already based out there, so on paper it all sounds easy enough. His plan is to buy a second property in Dubai and move there by himself, while I stay here with the kids.

The problem is, the children are really settled one’s in high school and the other is due to start soon, so moving them just isn’t an option. He’s suggested that we (me and the kids) fly out to Dubai every school holiday to spend time with him.

The catch is, under his visa he can only be out of Dubai for 90 days a year, so he’d basically have to live there full-time.

AIBU to think this is just not going to work long-term? I can’t help but feel like this is the start of living completely separate lives.

Amnesty International are not the BBC or the Guardian.

More here if you want to read widely from a range of sources. Might be a good idea.
https://petitions.ituc-csi.org/end-slavery-uae
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/12/03/questions-and-answers-migrant-worker-abuses-uae-and-cop28
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20230525-report-slavery-prevalent-in-saudi-uae-turkiye/
www.humanrightsresearch.org/post/modern-day-slavery-in-the-united-arab-emirates

Must be a bunch of Lefties, the lot of them.

I think your keyboard is broken. It keeps copying and pasting random links.

Boycotting Dubai due to their involvement in Sudan

It’s not exactly that @WildLimePoet is it?

Save some tax at the cost of his marriage and seeing his kids.

Either he's not done the maths, or he's exiting the marriage.

Not random. They're consistent.

Can you find any information that proves them wrong?

I wouldn't even go on holiday to the Middle East, but I'm in a minority.

@Dilemma87 you're obviously not british yourself - what is your home nation?

No no wealth us leaving the uk at all.. 🙄. And this was in Jan 25.

Britain’s exodus of millionaires last year was as damaging as the UK losing half a million taxpayers, a study has claimed.

The country lost 10,800 millionaires to foreign countries last year, more than double the number who left in 2023.

It means that, since Labour came to power, one millionaire left the UK every 45 minutes.

The exodus was sparked by Labour’s tax raids on private schools and non-doms as well as a general collapse in business confidence after Rachel Reeves’ October Budget.

Perhaps someone should be asking the question why businesses are leaving the UK instead of arguing about the ethics. No one uproots a business on a whim. The reality is Reeves has made the UK an impossible option for many businesses. It isn't about 'paying a bit more tax', it's about the business survival.

It's a shame that we have a Government that is so short sighted it can't see the very real repercussions of their decisions.

jesus, I don’t earn enough to pay taxes however if I did and was charged ridiculous amounts like they are I’d move to Dubai too if it was on the table

If having more money is more important to him than living with his family, there’s a real problem.

My sister is single and lives in Qatar. She’s pretty and a catch - relevant. In the company she works for she has been hit on by every single British married man there. There isn’t a single one who wouldn’t take the opportunity with her if she gave it. It doesn’t surprise me. Those who advocate for doing what the ops husband wants to do, or who do it themselves, have no morals after all. It couldn’t be clearer that they are only out for themselves, and that will absolutely include affairs.

He's probs already contributing an enormous amount. I read the other day that somebody on £45k already contributes over half their disposable income in various taxes in most cases.

People are just getting sick of being increasingly squeezed by a government they don't trust to make good use of the money. And there are so many people that take the piss and just take without contributing. Unfortunately, it's near impossible to weed out the piss takers from the genuinely needy without calling their bluff, which would cause the genuinely needy to suffer.

I totally understand how people who have other options will take them. Yes, Dubai has some pretty unsavoury aspects to put it mildly but he's not choosing it out the blue, he already has an avenue.

I guess a lot of people will choose tangible benefit for their family over ideological choices that are going to be a drop in the ocean in real terms. Like how a lot of women choose to give up FT work and let their higher earning husband be the main provider despite being fully aware that this perpetuate the status quo of men earning more and the job discrimination against women on the basis that they might step back after having kids, which is often the case.

We'll be seeing more and more of this and it's the middle earners that will get increasingly screwed. I already know a lof of tradespeople and builders that are talking about taking cash rather than paying increased taxes. People that were previously happy to 'do the right thing' on principle.

Really, you’d uproot a perfectly happy family, because you’d want to pay less tax? You could live in the UK, with your family, with sufficient income, but money is more important and you’d rather leave them and have more of it?

Money doesn’t buy happiness.

What country do women feel safer walking home at night on their own? It's not here.

And it's not 'a bit more'. It's a hell of a lot more if you don't have to pay any income tax.

But their wife and family may have moved on.

He’s paid tax in the uk most of his working life, she is still going to be paying tax in the uk as she works here. Between them they’ve probably paid more tax into the uk black hole of taxes, than the vast majority of others. They pay taxes for a school education they don’t use. Probably the same for heath care. Safe to say they’ve probably already paid for their share of ‘infrastructure’, particularly (but not only) compared to the millions of uk net takers.

AFAIK, the Gulf countries only allow you to be resident if you have a local sponsor. So you can't really 'settle' as your residence is on the whim of your employer. At least that's how it was when I lived in the region, though I'm open to correction on the current situation.

Don’t you mind that he’s asking you to be a single parent effectively? That he’s ok with not living with you or the kids? I would.

You haven’t linked to the info there, just the paper. A study has claimed? Who commissioned the study? Who paid for it? What are the actual figures? Was it the Henley and Partners one? Because it’s a bit suspect in the way they’ve presented it.
https://taxjustice.net/press/millionaire-exodus-did-not-occur-study-reveals/

Yes. El Fasher fell literally last week, thousands of people are missing, many have been raped, tortured and murdered by the RSF. And Zamzam will haunt your nightmares. But sure, Dubai, the dream, right?

.....and he gets to find himself a nice shiny new girlfriend. win/win/win for him.

Like I said above, this is not about tax avoidance. This is about him not wanting to lose money in a divorce but wanting to be single.

What will we do without the 0.3% of the UK's millions of millionaires?