According to the FT this morning:
[M[ore and more wealthy individuals are leaving their home country in search of tax breaks. In 2017, roughly 95,000 millionaires migrated, compared with 82,000 in 2016 and 64,000 in 2015, according to a report by New World Wealth, a market research group. The most popular destinations, ranked by high-net worth net inflows, were Australia, the US, Canada and the United Arab Emirates. The countries with the largest wealth outflows were China, India, Turkey and, perhaps surprisingly, the UK.
The report cited reforms to UK law on the status of non-domiciled residents and continued uncertainty over people's residency status, as well as high property taxes such as stamp duty, as reasons given by wealthy people for the departures.
I have three thoughts.
First, the numbers involved are so small. I know it sounds absurd, but being a millionaire is not that rare in today's world because of absurd property and share portfolio valuations. Knock out the number moving for work, the sun, and other family reasons and the number moring for tax must be pretty small.
Second, the destinations are not obvious tax havens. They look like work destinations, in the main.
Third, turning to the UK, we're losing the non-doms. And they were only here because they did not pay tax but did inflate house prices. The fact they're going is good news.
The myth that 'they'll all leave, and what will we do then?' is, as ever, shown to be nonsense.
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‘Third, turning to the UK, we’re losing the non-doms. And they were only here because they did not pay tax but did inflate house prices. The fact they’re going is good news.’
Not for the first time, HMRC would appear to disagree.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/728630/Statistical_commentary_on_non-domiciled_UK_taxpayers.pdf
https://www.ft.com/content/f96bb528-8e4f-11e7-a352-e46f43c5825d
So?
So is it good news that the UK is seeing an exodus of individuals who, despite your assertion that they ‘did not pay tax’ actually appear to pay, on average, tax of £ 105,000 per annum ?
Yes
because we do not need the distortions they bring to our economy; the housing poverty they create and the distortions in our tax politics that come from embracing them, as well as the wholly unacceptable discrimination in tax due based solely on an accident of origination that I consider profoundly racist
“Racist’ – towards who or what race?
Didn’t you have an anonymous donor whilst appearing on the BBC?
I declared the vast majority of my sources
And that the other source was a Quaker linked donation not disclosed to protect the donor from abuse
But you accept that they pay tax ?
They pay an inappropriate amount of tax
I wonder how many uk citizens are classed as ‘non doms’ – the ones who work as contractors in foreign, erm, hotspots?
And what checks are made on whether they don’t break their annual limits.
I think you need to do some reading about non-dom status
You are correct of course.
I meant non-resident as in
“you spent fewer than 16 days in the UK (or 46 days if you haven’t been classed as UK resident for the 3 previous tax years)
you work abroad full-time (averaging at least 35 hours a week) and spent fewer than 91 days in the UK, of which no more than 30 were spent working”
https://www.gov.uk/tax-foreign-income/residence
However my point is how many of these are there and what checks are made that they are actually following the rules?
I have anectdotal experience of knowing some persons in that situation.
Very few checks indeed, I suspect