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

@Barbadossunset personally I'd like the 'tax on farms' to have gone harder on individuals who have clearly invested in land as an IHT dodge. Leave the farmers alone and tax anyone who isn't properly farming the land they buy the full 40 per cent rather than 20. As it stands buying land and doing little with it is still a good piece of inheritance planning. That's just my opinion.

PMUK are asking for a number of measures which so far Labour hasn't indicated they'd go for. We'll see though...

Enjoy a collapsing NHS, pot holed roads and diminishing services as the high tax payers take their money elsewhere.

It’s very different to have inherited such wealth.

I wonder though if you’d feel the same if you’d had to work all hours and take substantial risks to garner the same wealth. If perhaps you’d sacrificed time with family to make that money?

I earn £55000 a year, so a reasonably good wage, though it’s come at a lot of personal sacrifice, time and wellbeing and quite frankly, I begrudge giving even a penny of it away.
I don’t care about an equal society. I care about feeling like my hard work is paying off for me. But like you, maybe if I was gifted money, I would have the luxury of feeling differently.

Leave the farmers alone and tax anyone who isn't properly farming the land they buy the full 40 per cent rather than 20.

@patrioticmillionaire that sounds fair enough, but when you say ‘anyone who isn’t properly farming the land’, do you mean that the owner isn’t actually working on the farm - driving the tractor, lambing etc - or do you mean someone who leaves the farm uncultivated or without stock?

Lovely, that poll you very kindly linked does not prove that UK Reform are going to be in power in any way, shape or form. Do you know how the electoral system for General Elections works in the UK don't you? First Past the Post and all that.

I don’t care about an equal society. I care about feeling like my hard work is paying off for me. But like you, maybe if I was gifted money, I would have the luxury of feeling differently.

Fwiw I have earned most of my money and I do care about equality and I am happy to pay my taxes.

It sounds like bollocks to me, to be honest. Where are they all going? They're just upping sticks and emigrating because they're afraid of tax? I've not heard of any real people actually doing this. I would suspect this is about where people are registered for tax reasons, rather than a flesh and blood, salt-of-the-earth entrepreneur hanging a "Closed" sign on t'mill, wiping his sweaty brow, and waving goodbye to his native soil to seek solace in a tax haven strange land.

I find it odd that non-millionaires have been brought to the point of wringing their hands about the plight of the poor millionaires.

Well, isn’t that the point. That we don’t all feel the same. You can’t force people who begrudge working to pay tax, to feel that’s fair and right.

We have a government that wants us to accept paying more tax, but I’m not alone, a substantial amount of people aren’t happy. And that’s why you can’t tax your way to growth. Because millions upon millions of people will avoid it. Either by leaving if they can, or I’d drop days at work, or even leave my job if I was taxed too excessively, because if I’m going to be poor, I’d rather be poor and not having to work.

That then puts pressure on the remaining workers, who are asked to pay even more and eventually everyone feels the same.

Well, isn’t that the point. That we don’t all feel the same. You can’t force people who begrudge working to pay tax, to feel that’s fair and right.

Of course we don't all feel the same. That's the point of a discussion.

But I am bemused by the number of posters who almost seem offended by the idea that there are people like @patrioticmillionaire

I’m not offended by patrioticmillionaire.

I’m envious. That they probably will never have to experience the worries I do. The £1400 a month mortgage etc

And I’m pissed off that these people are advocating for higher taxes, for basically all of us. Whether directly or indirectly. Because whilst they can comfortably afford that tax, I cannot.

But your life would be much nicer in general if public services were better, education standards were better and there was less inequality.

I earn marginally more than you, and I’m happy to pay every penny of tax if it’s going towards something measurable to help society. If you bring society up, the whole country becomes a nicer place to live. Less crime, more opportunity, more positivity. I still go home with far more than people earning the average wage, so can afford the niceties I “work hard for”, but can also admire everyone else feeling much better around me.

As it is, over the last few years, tax has disappeared down a hole and things have continued to get worse. That’s the frustration, and one I hope the new government improve on.

I do understand your point here though, and do agree the tax thresholds/effective tax perks need looking at to make things more even.

My cousin has a very successful tech start up (like he could retire now in his mid 30s) and is looking to relocate to the US as the environment here isn’t good for start ups, tech and the capital has shifted to the US - often with the condition that the business goes with it.

It’s not just older people or non-doms - it’s a lot of our home grown tech and innovation being bought by foreign investors - companies worth billions and the profits are realised over there, not here 🫤

I’m sorry, but that’s a fantasy. It’ll never happen that way. We don’t have governments that can manage public finance and on top of that, there are too many other factors which mean that we never reach this Utopia. Too many societal changes and cultural shifts that cause conflict, issues, violence, pressures, strain.

I’m 45 and feel poorer than I did 21 years ago, despite earning only £20,000 and having a young family. Successive governments have proven that what you describe is a pipe dream.

Capitalism = Opportunity

Makes perfect sense.

It's not bollocks. They are moving to a range of places including Switzerland, Italy, Dubai.
And nobody is wringing their hands about the 'poor millionaires', instead people are rightly concerned about the UK becoming worse off with the millionaires leaving, taking their job creation and taxes with them.

I don’t think people realise that when the millionaires leave, even just a small number by comparison, someone else has to pay that tax that they were paying. And that’s still a lot of tax.

The burden falls on the next rung of earners down. People like us. Because someone has to pay for this equal society.

No, that is a misunderstanding.

In a few weird cases you have British-born people who had non-dom status, but the vast majority are just foreigners.

Foreigners used to be able to choose to opt into higher UK taxes (eg give up their personal allowance) in exchange for having their foreign-sourced income that doesn't enter the UK be excluded from UK taxes.

In practice, it was high-income-high-wealth types who would choose that. So, foreign bankers, lawyers, etc. They paid taxes (at a high rate) on their UK income and gains, plus (after a certain number of years), an additional £30k or £60k pa on top. That was the ‘favourable’ terms they had before.

Now we will also tax them in the UK on the money that they earn overseas and which they never bring here.

That's in my view unfair, but from a sheer self-interested perspective it's probably a net drain on our tax take. So, we're paying money to get rid of some of our most productive (in economic terms) workers.

And the 'good riddance' sentiment feels misplaced to me too. These are people who only had any obligation to the UK at all because they chose to come here, and who have (almost certainly) been massively net-positive for the UK public finances.

The numbers aren't very high, but they pay for a lot of schools and hospitals.

Different groups.

Millionaires because they own a house on normalish salaries and are getting to their later years are not the ones leaving. They are also the ones who are a net drain on public finances.

Millionaires who came here to work from overseas, and who are paying top-rate tax with no personal allowance and who have private healthcare and insurance are the ones who are leaving. They are the ones who are massively net positive to public finances.

Also some entrepreneurs, though that’s a mixed picture because many have deep UK ties. Also their wealth is often UK sourced, so easier to make the case that they ‘owe’ us. But also, they are the ones creating jobs and work for the rest of us (unless you just want big corporates).

It's not really out of pity that we should be worried. It costs us money.

We used to charge up to £60k a year to foreigners for the privilege of having their non-UK income and gains that they never brought to the UK exempt from UK tax. In addition to paying full UK tax, with no personal allowance, on their UK income. These were almost always high income people, so they were already paying 10x or more (often much much more) the typical UK tax bill.

That was the 'cushy' non-dom deal.

By clever design of the scheme, this made sense for the very richest people, who also often were extremely high-earning people, thus extremely high UK taxpayers. And they cost almost nothing in public services. No strain on GPs etc.

We have now changed that so that the incentives don't work like that. They now must pay UK tax on worldwide income and gains, unless of course they just leave. Which many will choose to.

You need a lot of average UK taxpayers to replace each one.

Not sure why anyone is blaming labour for this. They only got in halfway through 2024. This has been coming hurt a long time. The Tories have run this country into the ground for years, we have horrendous cost of living, high taxation for higher earners with lots of unfair policies such as the £100k cut off and 60% tax rate), public services have been run down for years so many towns look run down and tired and full of rubbish etc I could go on and on. The UK has become an expensive and unpleasant place to live. Of course people who can afford to do so are leaving.

Yes that's when I think things started to go downhill.

Yes — let’s say you pay about £350k p.a. income tax between you. The median household pays a bit over £5k (2022 figures).

So we need about 70 typical households to replace you, just on the revenue side. After costs are considered, much more.

Well said. The way to encourage people to stay is to have a nice country to live in. And that means higher taxation, and a more equal society.

Norway has high taxation, less inequality, excellent public services (from what I have heard!) and high happiness ratings.

That's what we need to be heading towards.

But either way, change won't happen overnight. And we need to give labour some time before writing them off as useless, Our country has been being fucked for well over a decade and has been run by people more concerned about themselves, their own wealth and the wealth of their cronies than working for the benefit of the nation. And what we have currently is the result we get. People seem to have very short memories of the utter shit show that was the Tory party in recent years.

I think a lot of these millionaires might have gone to avoid the Labour government.