Reform has come up with one of the most stupid tax proposals I have ever heard of. As The Guardian summarises it:
Reform UK are to offer wealthy foreigners and returning British expats a bespoke tax regime in exchange for a one-off payment of £250,000 with all funds collected redistributed to Britain's lowest-paid workers, the party claims.
The proposal, dubbed the Britannia Card, is due to be unveiled by party leader Nigel Farage later this week. It promises a 10-year residence permit and a return to the controversial “remittance basis” of taxation, allowing cardholders to shield overseas income from UK tax and avoid inheritance tax entirely.
In return, high-net-worth applicants would pay an upfront “entry contribution” of £250,000, which Reform UK said would be distributed in full to the bottom 10% of UK earners.
Let me explain what this means.
Farage is, in reality, planning to offer a tax haven-style deal to people who want to come to the UK.
This is, then, a plan to boost migration into the UK.
In exchange for £250,000, paid upfront, those arriving in the UK will get a tax deal not available to those already here.
Farage is, then, planning a tax deal that favours migrants.
Those coming to the UK will be able to hide as much of the income as they like outside the UK, and entirely avoid UK inheritance tax.
In other words, Farage is planning a scheme where migrants to the UK will be deliberately allowed to avoid contributing to UK society in the way everyone already here has to do. He is planning to create a country biased towards migrants.
Farage will, in fact, be offering inward migrants a tax avoider's dream. You might even call it a tax evader's dream. We will never know the difference, because the people in question will not have to declare the income that they have received that is kept outside this country.
And Farage claims that this will raise money for the UK. Except that this is absurd because, as a matter of fact, no one will pay the £250,000 entrance fee unless they are going to save taxes as a consequence.
How much tax will they save? We can reasonably presume that they will expect to save £250,000 or more over a period of 10 years. Otherwise, the deal would make no sense to them.
In fact, because of the impact of interest costs and uncertainty, they will actually have to save much more than that in tax to compensate for the fact that they would be paying a significant tax bill early to get entry into this scheme. The result would be that very few people would use this arrangement unless they were going to save significantly more than £250,000 in tax.
In other words, contrary to Farage's claim, there will be no money to re-distribute to the poorest in the UK as a consequence of the making of this arrangement, his proposed deal to favour migrants will, in fact, dramatically cut the tax cost of some very wealthy people, and the consequence will be that there will be that there will be less money to redistribute to those in need, rather than more. For Farage to pretend otherwise is for him to assume that we are all stupid.
We are not. We can spot a dodgy deal when we see one.
We can see someone who is peddling a con trick from a mile off.
And, what is more, we can spot someone who has dressed up something that only benefits the rich as something that supposedly benefits the poor when it doesn't, with ease.
And without exception, we will presume that the person making such an absurdly false claim about what they're up to is simply revealing their true agenda.
Farage is doing just that. He does not give a damn about the poorest people in the UK. This scheme reveals it. He is only interested in helping the wealthy. No one else matters to him.
If he was really serious about helping people on low income in this country, he would be talking about how he is going to reform public services so that they get what they need. His planned cuts can never deliver that.
And he would be talking about how he is going to tax the wealthy more so that the funding to compensate for the additional costs required to help those in need might be available.
He would also be talking about boosting public services, not cutting them.
But instead, what he's talking about is providing massive tax opportunities for those who wish to abuse the UK, and there will be no gain for anybody already here.
What is more, he is doing this to boost inward migration into this country.
You could not make the absurdity of this situation up.
Farage really is a conman. He is planning to boost migration in the UK, and he is planning to do so at a cost to the country, and most especially those on lower incomes who are his supporters. They really should see him for exactly what he is.
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Given some of the ‘High Net Worth’ individuals who ended up in the UK after the collapse of the USSR I suggest that Farages plan would attract people who make The Scum of the Earth seem like outstanding citizens
Farage made his money as a commodities broker, which means he extracted value by over-pricing essential goods that the poorest in the world depend upon.
You explanation deserves to be more widely syndicated because there are a lot of suckers and desperate people out there that this remorseless bastard is exploiting.
Let’s not forget that Farage is another rich boy, mixing with other rich boys and that your politics is a politics of rich folk all having tremendous fun and gains at our expense.
Remember what The Who said:
‘Here’s the new boss; same as the old Boss – We don’t Get Fooled Again’.
So don’t!!
A good song
Pete Townsend could write lyrics
Perhaps a short video on this topic could be produced, so that it can be shared on social media. A lot of people will just take this at face value, and won’t look past the £250k to the poor angle.
OK…very soon…
I recently began playing again both “Tommy” and “Quadrophenia” which seem to have themes that have acquired a much greater relevance in the 21st century. As for Farage’s proposals – I wondered if he found them on the back of a crumpled fag packet dropped on the floor in Wetherspoons in Clacton then I realised that he probably does not know how to get to Clacton these days as he seems to be everywhere else but there. By the way, would Richard Tice’s ‘girlfriend’ in Dubai gain from this proposal?
Farage earns money from telling wealthy people how to avoid tax.
Eg. https://bylinetimes.com/2024/05/09/nigel-farage-nomad-capitalist-speaker/
Wraps everything up in a Union flag and then supports wealthy people extracting wealth from and avoiding tax in the UK. Some patriot.
Isn’t this the point? Reform supporters aren’t interested or would not understand the detail and nuances of his proposal. All they will hear is the “£250,000 for the poor” message and say it’s “our Nigel” looking after their interests again, and another reason to vote for him.
As always with Farage, and like Trump, it’s clever “policy” aimed at his base, delivered in a simple, clear way that Reform voters understand
This hits the Fa***e nail squarely on its flat cap-wearing head.
It’s a twin to his “raise the income tax threshold to £20,000” bit of populist economic stupidity. Wow, yes please, now what about that cruise?
Reminds me of Trump’s Gold Card.
Yet again we see Reform marching to the sound of the Trump bandwagon.
As a renowned right winger, I’m surprised Roger Daltrey agreed to sing it
He was, maybe, more enlightened in house youth
In the paragraph containing “contrary to Fa***e’s claim”, I think there is a “no” that slipped in just before “money”?
This is a great one for the omnibus.
Not only does it expose his “pander to the wealthy” agenda, it destroys all his toxic drivel about immigration, because he doesn’t care about the real issues surrounding that either, it’s just an issue to be exploited through gutter racist rhetoric. Presumably the sort of immigrants he claims to favour, won’t be moving to my neighbourhood, nor will any of their imaginary £250,000.
How will he redistribute the (mythical) £250k to people who don’t pay income tax because of their low income? I await his “increasing PIP & Carers’ Allowance” proposals with interest.
I think it will end up in the same place as all that dosh Johnson promised the NHS on the side of his big red Brexit bus (is he in jail yet?).
Thanks, and I think corrected…
If this turns into a Fa***e-challenging video, then the style/vocabulary/tone needs to adapt (sorry this sounds incredibly patronising, it isn’t meant to be) – very blunt language but also backed with bluntly expressed factual truth. “City trader” – “Rich men and their cronies” – “if Reform can’t run your local County Council how will they run your country?” – “a man who can’t hold a party of 5 MPs and its chairman together, can’t be trusted to run a country” – “why does Fa***e spend more time in America than in his partner’s house in Clacton?” – “Trump does not want to help ordinary British people, he’s too busy making friends with Trump & his war-mongering cronies” – “if you want to know what the UK under a Trump gov’t would look like, have a look at America, under Trump” -“Trump, Fa***e’s BFF” (Best Facebook Friend)
Maybe not quite that bad, but definitely abandon any idea of Queensbury Rules or carefully argued politics.. He’s a very well financed, very effective political thug & streetfighter. The big advantage is that we don’t have to copy his dishonesty, just his campaigning style.
Noted
I am musing on this…
I’m about to return to the UK after visiting a dying relative, it certainly concentrates the mind about what really matters.
The direct route flies over India/Pakistan, Iran/Israel and Ukraine/Russia…. what a broken world we live in.
I wonder how all the recent migrants to Dubai (to avoid UK tax) are feeling now that flights out are suspended by many airlines?
The UK has a lot to offer without Farage’s “deal”.
Given that Zia Yusuf made his money cosying up to high net worth individuals and farage spends his time making money helping tax dodgers, this isn’t a surprise
The Independent newspaper is reporting on this in its online edition with Mr Dan Neidle saying it won’t work and will cost the UK. His reasons are not the same as yours and I’m not in anyway qualified to know whether he is correct or not. What you say makes sense to me though as you explain things very well, so I conclude that this is a nonsense proposal which will sound convincing and desirable to too many people who are disconnected from and / or disenchanted with the current political landscape and will therefore swing Reform’s way sadly.
Dan picks more complex reasoning. I took the political economic line. We got to the same point.
The FT’s take on the story. The comments are interesting.
https://www.ft.com/content/50c6ce47-f427-4665-90b4-7a1d27c5e626
On your point of causing an increase in migration, I suppose supporters of this scheme would say wealthy folk are the sort of people the country should “want” and “need” rather than the poor crossing the Channel on boats.
It seems to me it’s just another ploy to get Labour into making yet another U-turn and Reform claiming again it is setting this government’s agenda.
The only reason they ever seem to use to justify having more rich people is that they pay loads of tax. This proposal blows that argument straight out the water!
It’s all trickle down, apparently.
At least Dan Neidle agrees with you on some things!
https://x.com/DanNeidle/status/1937061000450019568
The question of day is: how many millions — perhaps trillions — will it bring into the NHS?
PS: a definite ha! ha!
Perhaps Reform should tweak their slogan a tad to read “Stop the Boats (not including mega yachts, terms and conditions may apply)”?
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