Millionaires leaving UK- are you concerned?

[anonhop]

Read today that 10,800 millionaires left the UK in 2024 which is equivalent in tax take for the government to half a million average tax payers. I don't think that factors in their reduced reliance on public services either.

Do you think this is concerning in terms of investment & spending in our economy?

I understand the moral arguments for the wealthy paying more tax but if so many are leaving, will it practically leave us worse off?

Curious to see what people think

The UK has very high inequality of income compared to other developed countries; the 9th most unequal incomes of 38 OECD countries (OECD, 2022).
The UK’s wealth inequality is much more severe than income inequality, with the top fifth taking 36% of the country’s income and 63% of the country’s wealth, while the bottom fifth have only 8% of the income and only 0.5% of the wealth according to the Office for National Statistics.

If these millionaires don't want to pay tax and contribute, they can go, and the screen door can hit them in the behind. All trickle down economics/neoliberalism does is widen the wealth gap....the wealth does not trickle down. If everyone paid a lot of tax and received a decent social safety net and health care, and infrastructure in return, people would probably be a lot happier. But there is too much vested interest in having a Scandi-like system over here.

argh, Scandi model again...

read this old thread
Part II - To ask what you'll be doing to avoid the Labour tax - Scandi model | Mumsnet

When I tried to explain what Scandi model really means the answer was "we're too different"

@BeAzureAnt I understand your point except the part about them leaving. Surely everything else you've said (about wanting an equal, better society) means we need those people FOR their tax contributions.

The reason other countries have wealthy people who are willing to contribute without leaving isn't because our wealthy people are just intrinsically more greedy. Most people don't mind paying a chunk into society if it's being spent well, public services are running etc. the problem is that we are taxing the rich until they squeak & for no actual good- the public spending in this country is out of control & not going where it needs to.

It's also easy to say that these millionaires aren't a loss because they avoid tax anyway. This is actually quite inaccurate. Of course they look for the most tax efficient way of doing stuff, but they still pay a great deal of tax & we're losing that.

The only way them leaving will help your goal of a more equal society is taking rich away & making everyone left more equally poor. It won't improve a single person's life and will only decrease living standards.

A lot of the “inequalities” are regional issues rather than looking at exactly how much life costs there. So a ton of people in London will qualify as millionaires simply because they bought a house there 25 years ago. A ton of people will also qualify as very high income there but once you account for current housing costs there and taxation levels there, they are not that “rich”. Successive Governments have fuelled the rising costs of housing and regional inequalities. These then distort everything.

The problem is that it's not just millionaires who are leaving.
Younger highly skilled professionals who are or aspiring to be high earners are moving as well, Dubai is one of prime destinations now.
The impact on society here, future development and tax take is catastrophic.

This is a well made point. It's the talent that is aspiring for the future. Other countries are very happy to lure them away and it will be our loss.

This is exactly what people don't understand is happening. My son is training to be an actuary with one of the UK's largest finance/insurance firms. He and his cohort are nearly all planning to leave the UK once qualified. He is regularly attending leaving "do's" for other qualified actuaries working there who are emigrating. He says it's like a mass exodus - very few of them are actually planning to remain in the UK. He never even thought about emigrating when he first got the job, but it's the main hot topic conversation in the workplace.

Not only there. One of his Uni flat mates who is a trainee accountant with a top 4 accountancy practice says she is also planning on emigrating once qualified and apparently the sentiment is rife throughout her firm too among the young graduate trainees.

I have my own small accountancy practice, I don't have too many clients, less than 100, but over the past few years, 15-20 of them have emigrated, being a mix of freelance accountants, freelance IT contractors, freelance actuaries, etc - all very high paid.

These kind of professions are now highly mobile and they can literally work from anywhere in the World with a decent internet connection. The tendency is for them to relocate and work abroad, but many of them are still "working" for their previous "employers" based in the UK, but instead of the UK getting their income tax, NIC, VAT on spending, etc., other countries such as Canada, New Zealand and Dubai are benefitting instead.

People need to wake up and smell the coffee and start understanding what the World looks like these days, and stop the stupid glib comments of "don't let the door hit you on the way out" - it's childish and illinformed.

Look at Lewis Hamilton - not only "living" outside the UK to avoid UK taxes, he also bought his private jet via the Isle of Man to avoid paying UK taxes on it. Go back a few decades and NIgel Mansell moved to Isle of Man to avoid paying UK taxes as the IOM is a well known tax haven. Even Tyson Fury is rumoured to be "moving" to the IOM to avoid punitive UK taxes on his multi million pound income and assets.

We NEED the richer people, the higher earners to stay in the UK, spend in the UK, employ in the UK, etc. The last thing we need is for more of them to disappear abroad and pay their taxes to other countries, especially when their incomes are derived from the UK!

This is a fair and important point. The question should be how can we make UK a fair and vibrant society where talent will be nurtured, will thrive and therefore young talent will stay. Not how can we placate butt hurt millionaires or how can we over egg their departures to score political points.
We need a fair system.

@taxguru well said!! It's not just super high earners either. It's middle earners £50k-£150k like teachers, nurses, lawyers, junior docs who are moving abroad. Ok they don't pay the huge amounts of Tyson Fury & the like, but they're all net contributors we are losing. People are saying "good riddance" to public services & being a first world country and it's so frustrating!

If you want to see how the middle-high earners (doctors, lawyers, engineers etc) are thinking, there is a subreddit HENRYUK (HENRY = High Earner, Not Rich Yet). It may be a hard lifestyle to relate to, but you can see clearly the calculations they are making - how to cut down hours to get under £100k, should I move to Dubai/US/Australia, etc. The overall tone is one of frustration.

Note, this is a group of people who are high-earning professionals (salaries > £100k usually) but who don't come from family wealth, although might be hoping to become wealthy by the end of their careers. It's interesting to see what they point to as blockers in their paths and reasons they want to immigrate or cut hours.

For a gov that has bet on growth today's halving of the forecast isn't good

Not much on here as per. Maybe it'll take getting to public spending to be realised

@OneAmberFinch thank you for linking HENRY thread, very interesting reading

It's not just millionaires, or even young graduates. My DS knows an 18yo who has gone to the USA for university and is unlikely to come back here. Didn't get into oxbridge, despite the straight 9s/A stars etc - her private education possibly counted against her, or possibly it was just a very high number of applicants, who knows. The kind of go getter who won't tolerate anything less than the best - so she's now in the US at uni on a fully paid scholarship.

I know someone moving house - the people they're buying from will be emigrating soon, hence the sale. Another pair of skilled individuals doing good work and paying a fair whack in tax - going.

We are losing a lot of talent and wealth. And people are too wrapped up in ideology to see it.

My friends daughter has just moved to Australia following her medical degree. Too difficult to find a job here and is earning far more than she would have here

Oh, yes, that's another one - with top unis here actively discriminating against UK based private schools kids, a lot, and I mean a lot of top achieving kids from PS don't even consider UK anymore but apply to US instead. Established public schools all run programs teaching how to apply there and these programs are oversubscribed.

I know the masses here will shout "shut the door behind you", but it's enormous brain drain and we should be very scared.

I simply don't see much UK upside future for the young, able and ambitious. My son, nephews and nieces with ambition will go elsewhere. One nephew and his wife went to KSA and are now in Australia, and although they like the idea of returning to London, I am not sure they will. But our group of friends all did the same in the 1970s. We went overseas for new adventures and experiences, and the opportunity to earn more tax free, so we could save. DH left London in 1983, £600 into an overdraft, and with no chance to own property. Five years working in the ME and he had saved enough to buy 50% of a house (not a swanky mansion) and had kept another £30k which enabled him to start the business he is trying to retire from. I went to the US to achieve similar.

No society can afford to lose the flower of youth, and expect to prosper. So much of MN is bogged down telling us why we need to subsidise the incompetent or incontinent or inadequate, and the only answer is to squeeze harder.

Callaghan didn't create success by squeezing the rich until the pips squeaked in the 1970s and I think, 50 years later, that another generation is about to discover that the hard way.

My uni qualified DCs have left the country. Once they get residency I’m seriously thinking of following them.
This country is just (to quote from my late father) pants… on just so many levels.

But taxes will never be low enough while housing costs keep rising. You could lower taxes (or not raise them) but that doesn’t mean people will have more disposable income or be able to afford a home. So they still flee to Dubai or wherever.

Rents and house prices have been left to a capital market to determine. The flip side of millionaires entrepreneurs paying taxes and creating jobs is property as investment vehicles. It’s become the norm.

Being employed is no longer enough. The number of families living in poverty has risen whilst most are still ‘employed’.

Taxes will never be low enough to out balance the housing market.

I would encourage them. If you are young and want to get on and do well, the UK is not the place for you at the moment . Moving to another country away from their family here is not what I had hoped for my kids but I want them to have a good life and not be ground down by the state. It's a tragedy that Rachel Reeves has taken an economy that was actually on the up finally and wrecked it in 7 months and that it will lead to the brightest and best having to leave.

Very good point. Lazily "tax the rich" calls won't solve the UK's problems. We need some radical new ideas from the politicians. Throwing more money at the NHS won't solve it's problems. Taxing the rich won't cure the housing crisis. We should demand more from our politicians. Politics of envy never works and just causes more harm, as we're seeing with the IHT on farmers, VAT on school fees, "punishments" of employers with the NIC hikes, etc. We need to forget our obsession with tax. We need to grow the economy, not by fake house price inflation but by improving productivity etc. Trouble is doing it properly is hard work and I don't think our current crop of politicians (for the past 20-30 years) has the ability.

House prices are not universally high. There are massive regional differences, but of course, the “big” jobs are currently in places with higher house prices. The solution would be to work with the private and public sector to create jobs in different cities. That is our biggest weakness, local areas of extreme poverty and low productivity. You can get areas to turn around in under 10 years with the right jobs and businesses moving in. We saw this all over London over a prolonged period of time in the 90s and 00s. In parallel, they massively improved state education. Where there is a will there is a way. Letting youngsters who are impatient for success flee abroad is not the solution, although I completely understand why they might want to. I think gaining a different perspective is a good thing and can be inspiring. Hopefully some of them will come back.

@Hoppingabout agree with you on Reeves, all of Labour really including Starmer for this.

Many don't pay attention to economics but they'll likely notice when it hits public spending

I think it's so sad that the majority of the country seems to focus on what they get from the vast state. Like we are all baby birds in a nest with our mouths open with Rachel Reeves dropping a few worms in. It's no way to be.

Agree - My kids are barely literate, (like their mother!) but have very bright friends. Of the 6 that have done the Oxbridge process, all have had offers from American colleges.
We also have neighbours kids who have gone to America one on an athletics scholarship, the other football. Don’t think they will be coming home anytime soon.