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

We took mil twice to her gp to ask for antibiotics for a severe chest infection. Two different gps refused and spent longer explaining why they wouldn’t than they did examining her. A week after the second appointment she was in a&e fighting for her life with pneumonia and died 3 days later. So no, antibiotics aren’t used extensively everywhere, well certainty not in her gp surgery!

Very sad story but antibiotics are used to treat bacterial pneumonia not viral pneumonia. There is now a very good vaccine for viral pneumonia.

A chest infection can be treated with antibiotics but a GP will only prescribe antibiotics if they think it's a bacterial infection not viral....huge difference in treatment pathways... antibiotics don't kill viruses

That may be the case, but it is this Labour government that scuppered this deal with AZ. Nothing to do with Johnson.

And following much fanfare after the election, and again last November, about the UK:s life sciences sector as part of Labour's "Prescription For Growth".

Of course antibiotics are used extensively everywhere, I didn't say that we don't use them in the UK.

What I did say is that the ones we use here were invented in WW1, whilst the world moved on.
My social circle is very international, I'm in close contact with people from 40+ countries and as parents we discuss issues like this. It's only in the UK a child is prescribed penicillin which has to be taken four times a day (means interrupted night sleep for little kids) for seven days and has gazillion of side effects. My friends in other countries, incl so called 3rd world ones, can't believe this.

Edited to add: this is under NHS. If you go private you can get modern medication. Which means it's only cost consideration. Even for young kids.

Cambridgeshire still has a lot going for it, Pharmacy and IT are booming still

I don't think this will continue for long. Cambridge brand name still has a lot of value, but more and more people intend to start there to get the brand on CV and as soon as they start progressing professionally they move on, abroad.

This is what is happening in IT. The decent and well paid talent is off. In the meantime we are importing huge numbers of migrants who stay for a masters and then start applying for entry jobs under a graduate visa and then bring their families over. It’s not “the boats” that are the issue - it’s this. The families move over at net cost to the state and the talent is not up to the demands of the high skill required.

What it means is, we have hugely unqualified and inexperienced people for the job. Out of 500 applications - not enough meet the quality to sift for positions. In the meantime our home grown talent has left. It’s a bloody nightmare. In the meantime, our home grown talent who are in demand globally are leaving and creaming off all the high tax positions and moving offices.

Absolutely @Andwhoisasking - I feel like I keep banging the drum that just because someone comes on a "Skilled" visa does not imply that they are a highly-talented expert with rare skills! (I say this as someone on a work visa myself - there are plenty of people who DO have skills but the bar to jump over isn't high at all. I think I speak for a lot of us who would prefer a higher bar, that we know we could jump, so that other people would also know!)

Yep. Recent job 4 positions, 500 odd applications. Mostly from foreign people on a visa. Not enough talent in all of those positions to fill the vacancies. Those that could fill vacancies are taking their skills elsewhere. More favourable tax, salaries, training, investment and development. It’s actually a huge crisis.

Yes to skilled visas as well.
FTSE100 top list businesses with HQs here and international footprint now open AI development hubs in Dubai. It's not exactly low cost location but it's way much easier to attract top talents there.

The UK hasn't been truly competitive on salaries internationally for 40 years. I returned from NYC in 1985 to London, and took a 50% cut in salary. When I went freelance in 1990, I charged £200 per day, and that increased fast but people doing my old job now are still changing £200 per day and struggling to increase their rates.

The jobs market is a major issue for Labour

Car crash in slow motion. Although speeding up

Wonder if Starmer and Reeves can admit it, they're both implicated and responsible

Eh, they wrote off Lincolnshire to be an industrial wasteland. 14 Solar farms in play (3500 hectares so far), pylons and a nuclear waste dump...positioned conveniently right on the edge of the AONB. I think if they could have gotten away with putting a giant pylon next to where Tennyson was born and the babbling brook they would have gone ahead. The county provides 10% of the food to the UK, but you know it is more lucrative to have solar farms to provide power for other areas..

A recent article in Private Eye noted
Just Fancy That!

23 January: Ecotricity Dale Vince is asked on BBC question time about his firm’sgenerous donations to the Labour party, which totaled £3.6 million in 2024. Vince responds, “I don’t see influence,” and confirms: “a lot of people don’t give money in return for influence, they just give money because they want to see a party win. That’s where I’m at.”

24 January: Dale Vince pronounces himself “delighted” after Ecotricity’s proposal for a 524-hectare solar farm in Lincolnshire is approved by the Labour government.

A recent visit to Boston, Lincs saw a quagmire of delayed construction with the levelling up signs pointing sideways. Says it all really. And then folks wonder why there is a Reform MP in Lincolnshire. The sad bit is that trickle down economics never trickles down, it just exacerbates the wealth divide. It would be so much better to have a more equitable society.

Yeah, it was only Tory with mates contracts.
Again, the damage caused by this was financial. This current lot is destroying the land permanently, it can never be reversed.

I'm not interested in IHT on farmers was a part of a bigger plan - to force them to sell of and put all these wind farms instead

Yeah. The solar farms will be there for 25 years and then decommissioned. That land will sit under them with no sunlight, no plants.... It is going to be a dustbowl when the panels are removed..The pylons are going to interfere with bird migration. We have so many flora and fauna in trouble in the UK, and this is just going to accelerate it...3500 hectares into wasteland.

So much of Lincolnshire was a thriving wetland before it was drained in the 17th century and we have so much flooding in the country. I really wonder ecologically and economically if it would be far better to return it to wetland to provide a place for the water to go as it did before and rewild it. but of course, that doesn't make money in the short term.

I have solar on my roof with battery storage, electric car, heat pump, not against renewables, but surely destroying large swaths of open land is not the answer.

@BeAzureAnt

this is all so depressing
but they are prepared to be unpopular

I've definitely noticed an exodus with a lot of young IT professionals leaving for the US over the past year. We had a chuckle over lunch today as early 2000s we had loads of young IT professionals from India coming over, but now we're the ones exporting talent. People with options are taking them and going where there is opportunity, it's not just current millionaires but also future ones.

Indeed. Plus a quarter of million "bright young people" gone over to Dubai.

These are the ones we should be worried about. Losing them is like losing future assets. The millionaires we lose were only here for the tax benefits anyway so probably weren't contributing much at all.

I've just been reading the thread about the threat of recession on AIBU.
Plenty of pp on there convinced that this loss of talent isn't happening.

These are the same people that were on all GE and PS threads arguing that everything's great and going in the right direction. Maybe they just don't see that talent so not aware they are leaving?

well, it is

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expatriates_in_the_United_Arab_Emirates

It's not that surprising as when growth is stifled no one has time to train anyone. There are far fewer graduate schemes with the traditional firms as grads are considered useless and it is cheaper to outsource to an experienced professional from Romania/Moldova/Latvia etc. My graduate intake in 2000s had over 250 people (large well known bank) with structured progression, last year they took zero.

I think it's just willful ignorance tbh

You probably have to be in the private sector to notice and many on mn aren't

I can understand why people have their heads in the sand and are denying the economic disaster that is unfolding.
It's the same with every person who has been scammed or conned.They don't want to admit that they've been scammed,it's embarrassing and a blow to their pride. No one wants to be seen as gullible,and admit that they were taken in by smooth talk, impossible promises ect. That's why,when faced with Labours disastrous policies,they try and rationalise them,by saying that "it's only the rich being affected" or there are "no tax rises for working people",as they can't compute that a government would willingly throw it's populace under a bus.

I'm old enough to remember when Labour were in power in the 1970s,the rubbish piling up on the streets,empty shelves in the shops due to strikes, power cuts,dead bodies being unburied, the 3 day week. That was enough for me to never trust Labour.