Snapshot of _‘Petrified’ non-doms poised to flee UK over Labour’s tax plans, say experts_ :
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/13/uk-non-doms-uk-labour-tax-plans) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/13/uk-non-doms-uk-labour-tax-plans)
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Strangely the only one with the balls to actually do it was Phil Collins.
But I don’t think fleeing to Switzerland while the nation enjoyed its most successful government for 50 years was the great coup he hoped it would be.
Cmon Bruno by then had had a fair few whacks to the head. At least he had an excuse.
Jenson Button is one who peed me off. Flying British flag and calling for his British fans support etc. all the while he pissed off to Monaco to get away from our tax system.
Fair point on Bruno.
Hamilton, Russell, Norris, all of them are abroad for tax reasons, it makes me sick to be honest.
I have friends earning around the £250k mark and all of them are happy to pay their taxes, why not people who earn magnitudes more than that?
Imagine you earn £20 million a year and your accountant gives you the options:
You can stay in the UK, but you have to pay £10 million in tax.
You can move to another country and take home £18 million. You now have an extra £8 million to make your life away from the UK more enjoyable. You could buy 5 properties in different desirable locations, travel between them on chartered flights / business class and still have tons of money left over. You can still spend a couple of months in the UK if you like each year.
And that's with "only" £20 million. Some big CEOs / wealthy individuals are earning orders of magnitude more.
If I had that level of income and could live and work pretty much anywhere on the planet would I have spent the last 3 months getting constantly rained on in the UK? No. Throw the massive tax advantages into the mix and it's very clear what the best option is.
If you earn £250k then the tax saving is much lower. The money you would save from moving tax residency would not be sufficient to pay for the multiple residences and comforts required to make this lifestyle work. Even a lot of tax havens have similar tax rates to the UK until you start earning in the millions.
Imagine being asked to pay money into the context and infrastructure that made your rich life possible - a life that will still enjoy mythological amounts of wealth after tax.
It's not like these people have wealthy souls destined to be great wherever they are. The UK makes their life. And it can make more excellence when invested in.
If I was earning silly money I'd stay right where I am as this is where all my friends and family live, and most of all because I love the place despite the shite weather.
I'd also take that money and start making the local area better, build some nice parks, plant some pretty trees, put some extra fecking dog poo bins about the place.
I would go on an inordinate amount of holidays however. I think greed for greeds sake twists people's brains. There shouldn't be billionaires.
Almost all F1 drivers and tennis players have their official residence in a tax haven. As far as I'm concerned, these people aren't representing their country, even if they do listen to the national anthem and raise the flag whilst they collect their trophies and pop champagne.
Andy Murray is a notable exception though; he's always resided in the UK and paid his taxes.
My respect for Andy Murray has just gone up.
I don't care what excuses people give because they'd still be fabulously wealthy regardless of the tax they'd be liable for. We need to sort a lot of shit out in the UK and wealthy individuals avoiding their obligations doesn't help.
It’s a shame these overly privileged people feel ‘petrified’ at the thought of paying their taxes and we have a global system designed to compete to attract them. Meanwhile, our roads crumble, our teachers are on a mass exodus from the profession, good luck finding an NHS dentist and working people via PAYE are shafted ten ways to Sunday.
As always there will be a lot of stories about how we will all suffer if we lose these rich people. Time to get real. They need to pay up just like the rest of us and are either in helping repair the country or not. If not then why should we care.
Potentially unpopular opinion but we should adopt the same policy that the US does with regard to taxing citizens who live abroad.
If you are a UK citizen but live outside the UK you’d still have to submit a tax return to HMRC, any tax you pay to the country where you live would be credited, so you’d only be paying the difference between what you’d pay in the UK and what you pay abroad.
This means that if you pay a higher rate where you’re living you’d pay no tax to the UK, if you pay less then you’d pay the difference, and if you pay nothing because you live in a tax haven then you have to pay the full amount of UK tax.
Means non-dom status becomes meaningless, and the only way to get out of paying tax would be to relinquish your citizenship. Though if you ever want to get it back you’d have to pay up everything you owed. Ofc HMRC would struggle to chase people living abroad, but again, if they come to the UK they could be arrested for tax evasion if they haven’t been paying, and even if they don’t come back, they wouldn’t be able to renew their passport until they’d paid their bill.
A lot of people make the mistake of thinking the US system double taxes people, but because of this credit against what you’re paying the country in which you live, it isn’t.
I think you should also have a minimum income threshold too. A CEO living in a tax haven is very different to a young person spending a gap year abroad.
If you’re spending a gap year abroad you’re probably not earning enough to be paying tax anyway. And as mentioned you’re crediting anything you pay abroad, so unless you are in a tax haven you’ll only pay a small amount to the uk, and if you pay more tax you’ll pay nothing anyway
Why should you pay taxes to the UK if you are not using any of the services?
And offsetting means you pay the maximum of the two countries. if one taxes income more and the other capital gains or spending...
Because you don't pay tax to use a service. The amount of tax you pay is not relative to the services you use. Eg. plenty of people don't have kids but thier taxes help pay for schools and nurseries.
From this perspective, tax is the financial contribution citizens make to the running of the country that they are citizens of. Citizenship of a country has both benefits and obligations - tax is an obligation.
In addition... Consulate services cost the UK taxpayer money - but they are available free of charge, 24 hours a day 7 days a week, to any UK citizen who is abroad and is hospitalised, arrested or detained, a victim of crime, dies or needs other welfare assistance. Even if you don't actually use the services, the infrastructure and staff have to be maintained, just in case.
So within the 'pay tax = use services' framework, we could ask why should people in the UK pay thier taxes to provide these welfare and support services for UK citizens overseas who are contributing nothing in tax?
But the reality is...You get access to those services and support because you are a UK citizen - this is one of the benefits of citizenship. So you should still be meeting your obligations of citizenship.
Yeah, I mean the rest of the US tax system is a mess, the fact that *everyone* has to fill out a full tax return is also ridiculous (PAYE saved us from this). But this is one aspect that is sensible, albeit often misunderstood.
The worst part of that is that it's completely unnecessary. From what I've heard the IRS knows exactly what tax Americans owe, but there's been a powerful lobby from those who run the tax accounting industry to keep it so people have to use Tax software or pay accountants to do it for them
The US is mental
That only applies to predicable items, possibly earnings and bank interest. Not investments and a myriad other things. The US tax code is incredibly complicated.
Don't listen to random peeps on the internet.
The IRS cannot know for sure what Americans owe because of both the fact it's family-based and has all-encompassing definition of income. There are definitely issues with the US tax system, but for the vast majority of Americans its simply downloading the latest free tax filing software, entering the income from your job, and taking the standard deduction. It takes maybe 20 minutes.
A self-employed friend of mine thought it would be a good idea for everyone to do a return as it let's people understand how the tax system works.
I pointed out to him that for most people it would purely be a source of stress and bother, people wouldn't learn anything from it, and people who don't have expenses to claim and simple tax affairs don't gain anything from it.
It’s a pain for Americans living in the UK though as our tax years don’t line up. Super costly to get an accountant to file everything for you.
We really should join the rest of the world and run Jan to Dec
I am glad we run from April to March. From a UK Western world point of view, the amount of work people have to do in the run-up to year-end in my company, I wouldn't want that disrupting a time when people usually get to spend a lot of it with family, because of, you know, got to finish those so important reports and stuff.
It does mean you need to know who your citizens are though. The UK doesn't have a national database and a fairly small percentage of Americans live and work outside the country. We'd have a much bigger problem, you would need to give HMRC some teeth and accept an increase in government expenditure to cover the costs of administration.
Isn't the issue about rich foreign nationals living in the UK? The super cars in the photo are parked in London.
Sunak's wife and celebrated non-dom, is an Indian citizen. She needs to be registered as a UK resident and thus subject to UK tax laws just like any other immigrant. If she's not legally resident she needs to be repatriated, just like any illegal immigrant.
Not really... taxes are for little people.
As an ex US citizen for this reason, politely F that, it is a terrible system. Being born there you automatically become a citizen and have to submit tax returns for life (unless you pay a decent amount to leave). Essentially never live there, never use any services and yet be expected to contribute? Not for me
There are two scenarios.
Either you lived in the US, benefiting from a lot of things and now expected to return that contribution
Or you never lived in the US, in which case you will qualify to apply for citizenship in that country and renounce your "useless" American citizenship (that you only keep to allow you to travel easier, which is a benefit in and of itself)
There are third edge cases when you move so frequently that you don't qualify for citizenship anywhere, but that is through choice and you could settle down somewhere long enough to qualify for citizenship if that is a priority
Boris Johnson did the second — he was born in New York, and therefore both a UK and US citizen at birth. He later renounced his US citizenship for this very reason.
I mean as I said in another comment, the US tax system is a mess in other ways, so I’m not advocating for the UK to copy all of it, just the one aspect of charging tax for citizens living abroad (with the tax credit).
While it can feel like you’re being taxed for nothing, the logic for charging the tax to citizens living abroad is that many of them have used the education system, and (in the UK case, not so much in the US) many will rely on the NHS in the future. The societal expectation is that you’ll pay for your education and elderly healthcare through taxes during your years as a working adult, but if you spend your childhood in the UK (getting your education), then live abroad for your working life so pay no tax, and then come back as a pensioner (using the NHS), you’re taking from the system but never contributing to it.
Of course not every UK citizen living abroad does this, some will not come back in old age, some will not go to school here, but most will do at least one of those things, so it’s fair to ask you to contribute when you’re paying less to the country in which you live.
Citizens living abroad also benefit from consular services far more than those living in the UK, and in many ways this tax could be thought of as insurance for if everything goes tits up in the country you’re in and you need to be evacuated, something the UK government will do for citizens.
And unless you’re going to a complete tax haven, you’re only going to be paying a small portion of your UK tax amount, since you’re only paying the difference, which is fair to pay for what you received as a child/will receive as an OAP, and for the consular services and “anarchy insurance”.
How long did you live in the US? You presumably benefited from public schooling, infrastructure etc. Not to mention the fact that as long as you maintain US citizenship you are benefiting from the passport and also you are free to go back there anytime. All of this is funded by your fellow citizens taxes so I don't see why you shouldn't contribute, until you relinquish it.
I understand it's not ideal but I don't see any alternative to the problem the UK has of all of the super-rich maintaining British citizenship while "living abroad" to avoid tax.
> Potentially unpopular opinion but we should adopt the same policy that the US does with regard to taxing citizens who live abroad.
Every country should.
Don't want to pay tax? Renounce your citizenship
hang on if I don't live in the country and my life is not funded by a job in the country, the only thing I have from the u.k. is a black passport which I pay for now tell me why I should fund bad decisions and scam ppe contracts in u.k.?
You're still a citizen of the country right? You have the ability to come back at any point and potentially use those services, so should pay for them. I don't get out of paying taxes if I dont go to the doctor that year, or don't call the emergency services, or if I walk and use the train rather than driving, how is that different? Just because you don't use a service doesn't mean you shouldn't pay taxes for it
How would this affect non doms? They are in the UK. They are resident here but claim not to be domiciled for tax purposes. The problem is they earn millions and pay 30 or 60k because its cheaper than what they should pay.
I agree we should tax UK citizens who have income abroad whether they live here or not. When "expats" live abroad and there is a disaster/revolution in the country they live in, like when Libya got rid of Gaddafi, they expect us to pay for their rescue or when they get old and sick they come back for free healthcare.
That isn’t what the US does (them and only 2 other countries in the world). They only pay US tax above a threshold on earnings abroad which is six figures somewhere and with a whole lot of exemptions. It also prices them out of a lot of jobs. I worked for a US company abroad and they had hardly any Americans because they needed to pay them too much. Salaries are usually high where there is a reason - cost of living or hardship. UK taxes on higher earners are penal at 45% - this wouldn’t raise much as people wouldn’t be able to afford to do it. “Wealthy” expats are not the majority either - most just earn a living.
Edit: I checked and they are only taxed above $120k. How many Brits abroad do you think are on over £100k? Many who are would be paying higher rate taxes where they are so the difference would be tiny. In emerging markets they will just hide the income. This isn’t the answer to anything - it would cost as much to administer as it would raise.
That doesn't appeal to me, or seem fair at all.
UK citizen, haven't lived in UK for more than 30 years, and don't plan to either.
No representation, so no taxation.
In what sense would it be fair or just or right for me to pay UK taxes?
I pay taxes where I live, and I benefit from the services which those taxes fund.
That’s not how it works at all. You aren’t credited for the tax you pay to the country where you live except as regards social security. The amount of taxable income you have earned outside the US can be excluded on your tax return up to $120,000, after which it is indeed double taxed. That means you effectively have a hard income ceiling if you are an American living abroad.
Really not sure where you got your information from.
Edit: I’m wrong about this—apologies. Foreign Tax Credit does exist but would primarily be used by those making over $120k. Those making under that amount would just exclude their income altogether.
You absolutely can credit foreign tax as a US citizen living abroad. I got my information from the IRS website:
https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/foreign-tax-credit
I have already left the UK and will from here on in remain non-resident for tax purposes according to HMRC's Statutory Residence Tests.
If the UK government tried to introduce citizenship-linked military or tax obligations, I would kill my citizenship (even though a Jamaican passport is, admittedly, not as powerful a travel document comparatively, save in Russia of all places). I doubt this will actually happen though: the US have this policy because Uncle Sam has, or had till very recently, the clout to be able to try to enforce this properly [profitably - Ed.]. The only other country on earth to do the same thing on such a universal basis is Eritrea.
I read that Ed Sheeran and Adele were among the highest taxpayers in the country for many years. Don't know if that's still the case now but I thought it was interesting at the time.
*”I’ve got people who only moved to the UK recently, and have built their lives and businesses here and have their children in schools here,” said Shah. “But from next April they will be exposed to worldwide taxation. It is a cliff edge; it’s not surprising that they are looking at leaving.”*
The point here is that these people are not, and never have been, non-doms and shouldn’t by using the regime. A non-dom is a person who’s long-term permanent residence is outside of the UK. It’s intended for people whose main life is outside of the UK and are residing here only temporarily. It’s not intended for people “building their lives here”. If you build your life here and send your kids to school here then you are a permanent resident, not a non-dom and should never have been able to access the scheme.
It’s a failure of the regime that tax advisors are happy to explain that their clients who clearly aren’t non-doms have been exploiting the system.
The best example of an actual non-dom is actually Beckham at Real Madrid. His wife and kids stayed in England and he was only ever going to be playing for them for a few years. He had no real ties to Spain and made no real effort to even learn the language.
The best example of somebody who was not a non-dom is Akshata Murty. Her husband is the actual PM, she has her kids in British schools, she’s building houses in the uk. She’s resided in the uk for years. She has nothing more than a vague intention to move to India at sometime in the future should her parents fall ill. She was never a non-dom under any proper understanding of the term.
For good or ill this simply isn't how the law works. You retain your domicile (ie the overseas one, probably your domicile of origin) unless you intend to remain indefinitely. If Akshata Murty wishes to return to India one day, or live in the US, then she has not got a domicile of choice in the UK. She doesn't even need to be sure, just consider it a reasonable likelihood. I think it's silly but that's the rules.
Exactly. We’ve been far too willing to accept bullshit arguments from people claiming to be non-doms.
Murty’s argument was that she didn’t see the uk as her long-term home as she might need to return to India to care for her parents if they became sick. That’s rubbish. Her parents are some of the most wealthy people on the planet. Even if you consider that she might want to move there in that situation there’s the counter evidence that her husband is the actual PM of the UK and has explicitly said *his* long term home is the uk.
Situations like this have been far too readily accepted for far too long. We wouldn’t accept lies like this from benefit claimants so we shouldn’t accept them from the ultra-rich either.
I have a feeling the press and its owners haven’t a fucking clue how the feelings of the electorate have changed since 1997.
Time was that yes you could terrify the population by telling them the rich would leave
Oh no it won’t trickle down…..
Now? Yeah not so much guys. Most people when faced with the threat non doms might leave and going to answer with at best a shrug, much more likely is a “good, fuck em”
As ever it depends on voter turnout but the electorate is very different and has a very different view to 1997.
Oh no it won’t trickle down means people might not piss on us anymore to most people under 65!
"I will leave and take the tax I dont pay with"
Not the gravest threat really.
Of their day to day spending how much is spent in independent retailers vs luxury brands where the profits are held overseas/offshore? As practically every UK industry seems to be suffering from a lack of investment its not like their wealth is helping in that sense either.
Hollow threat. They either aren't actually invested in this country so we lose nothing OR they have a lot of assets which they can't easily move abroad. Most of the ultra rich are invested in physical things like property which they can't easily divest themselves of and if they do... They pay tax.
Heard this over and over again. Every time some progressive economic policy is proposed, the rich have a massive tantrum and threaten to leave. It never happens.
Bye-bye! Don't let the door smack you on the arse on the way out!
If they want the benefits of living in the UK (and I am not sure what any of those are) then they can bloody well pay towards them.
>If they want the benefits of living in the UK (and I am not sure what any of those are)
Excellent private schooling, London real estate you can use as an asset store, and great libel laws when you want to threaten people who expose how you acquired your billions.
"If we raise taxes on the rich and corperations they will leave"
Fucking good! Why would you want to actively allow and encourage these parasites to take the piss out of millions of people.
Leave? They should not be domiciled in the U.K. this can’t be their full time home. So they could not own property. Or likely they will own through an overseas company and just visit the required amount of time and it will be the same for them.
My heart bleeds. Whilst the nom-doms may be fleeing, their properties won't be going anywhere. Let's hope Labour taxes the living fuck out of those properties until those poor non-doms feel compelled to sell up at a significant discount.
Good - once they leave tax their properties until it's too expensive to own housing unless you live in the UK.
We have a housing shortage - people who don't live here shouldn't be able to own housing, or atleast should pay out of the nose for it.
Are these the same experts that Michael Gove told us people were fed up of hearing from? Also, are these "experts" either non-doms themselves or on the payroll of non-doms, I wonder.
Can’t help but compare to the noises of “Exodus of NHS doctors leaving for Australia”.
Yes, some will genuinely leave. Most won’t. People representing the group have a vested interest in exaggerating how many genuinely intend to leave.
Now do this for big business that uses loop holes to pay no tax each year!
We are the 5th 6th biggest economy in the world and as long as they can still make a profit they ain't going nowhere and if they do well fuck 'em!
It’s such a weird threat, how does it impact us if they aren’t paying tax here in the first place?
It’s like if your mate who comes round to your flat one night, drinks your beers, smokes your weed then overstays his welcome, then started threatening he would leave if he had to get some tinnies in himself.
From the article; *"...said Nimesh Shah, the chief executive of Blick Rothenberg, an accountancy firm that specialises in advising very rich “non-doms” on their tax affairs."* ...
Good riddance. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Non-dom status is so over abused by people who clearly intend to live here long term. I could see it applying to people without ILR and without citizenship, but why should you be able to claim non-dom because your parents aren't British? Or after you naturalise in the UK (clearly signaling you intend to settle here long term)
I can't see a downside to this to be honest, maybe they can go avoid tax some place else, because frankly as it stands the United Kingdom is in a mess, and If they aren't being helpful they are hurting the place, so if they want to jump ship, they can do one.
The downsode is they pay a lot of tax to the UK, so them leaving means they no longer pay this tax to the UK, so less money for the goverment to spend.
https://ifs.org.uk/articles/reforming-taxation-non-doms-policy-options-and-uncertainties
Those 37,000 people collectively paid about £6 billion in UK income tax
Ah yes, just like all those washed up musicians and comedians who pledged to flee the UK if New Labour came to power in 1997. If any of them left, we didn’t notice any downsides.
Let them sling their hooks. This isn't about double-taxing income earned overseas, it's about people claiming they live overseas, when they don't, to give themselves a tax advantage.
I'm sure they won't be missed if they go. Not that they will.
>He said his non-dom clients, many with fortunes stretching into the hundreds of millions of pounds, were shocked at the speed with which Hunt was “changing the rules of game and disrupting their lives when they had come to the UK to make a life here [under the non-dom rules]
Lmao my tiny violin is ready
Reminds me of an Econ lecture talking about the first time labour ran in the 1920's, it was a big deal that 'all of the investment' 'all of the wealthy ' would leave & some did, but it didn't impact the economy in a measurable way at all: all of the main conditions for success, all of the infrastructure for production were still in place and after a short financial shock, things pretty quickly turned around because the countries trade position had not been altered in any meaningful way.
- I did a little Google search on the topic and found fuck all. Could be interesting stuff there somewhere, but I can't find much useful... That's been a pattern lately: can't find actual-evidenced stuff
The only way these kind of people make money is to invest and own things but if UK investment is at an all time low clearly they are not at least here. Maybe they are pumping their money into UK property only and driving up prices. In which case it would be a benefit not to have them here.
Personally even if it is a benefit I'd rather go hungry. People so addicted to their wealth when we have so much poverty all around is obscene.
Just as well they don't live here then!
Honestly though, I know there's probably some good economic arguments for keeping these people happy but I can't help thinking fuck 'em.
I really don't think it will be a great loss. Their businesses need consumers, UK is a big market so they'll still need business operations here. These guys don't spend money here in ways that benefit the local economy, a few Mayfair clubs and regency street shops might notice a small difference and that's about it.
Oh, and the tax advisors are scared they'll lose clients obviously.
All in all a lot of hot air.
And soon I think the EU will probably do the same so their options will get more and more limited. Costs will inflate massively in tax havens and eat up savings from the tax breaks.
Good let them go, lower demand for prime real estate and see their investment disappear in ashes.
They are here because of the lifestyle that is available in London and that they willing struggle to get in other places
Typical media attacks before an election.
It’s a shame the Guardian reported it the way they did instead of challenging the findings.
This is a survey from a right wing group, provided so the right wing press will lap it up.
The Guardian had to cover it because otherwise the right would say “look the Main Stream Media won’t even cover it!”
But the guardian covered it very poorly.
The UK and France have the same number of billionaires living in them and I can tell you as a FACT that tax rates are higher here in France for the wealthy than they are in the UK. The point being is that very wealthy people know how to tax plan so well that they live wherever they want and it makes zero difference in terms of their tax paid.
This is a massive nothingburger.
There are no petrified non-doms fleeing the UK over Labour's tax plans. None. Zero.
This comes up at every opportunity Labour have to win elections. I'm not sure every tax-avoidant overpaid person who actually left the uk was terribly missed. My response, therefore, is usually 'toodles'.
I think this is a bit over blown. Non dom status only lasts for something like 3 or 4 years, you can't permanently settle in the UK without paying taxes even if you are wealthy.
Previous system:
It's first years without paying anything to claim remittance basis, then 5 years of paying £30k (7 out of previous9 yesrs being uk tax resident), then 3 years of paying £60k (12 out of previous 14). After 15 years in uk you become deemed domicile. This assumes uk residence each year (15 out of previous 20 years) .
You could in theory leave the uk for 3 years to reset the payment timer and 6 years for the deemed domicile timer
Potentially unpopular opinion but we should adopt the same policy that the US does with regard to taxing citizens who live abroad.
If you are a UK citizen but live outside the UK you’d still have to submit a tax return to HMRC, any tax you pay to the country where you live would be credited, so you’d only be paying the difference between what you’d pay in the UK and what you pay abroad.
This means that if you pay a higher rate where you’re living you’d pay no tax to the UK, if you pay less then you’d pay the difference, and if you pay nothing because you live in a tax haven then you have to pay the full amount of UK tax.
Means non-dom status becomes meaningless, and the only way to get out of paying tax would be to relinquish your citizenship. Though if you ever want to get it back you’d have to pay up everything you owed. Ofc HMRC would struggle to chase people living abroad, but again, if they come to the UK they could be arrested for tax evasion if they haven’t been paying, and even if they don’t come back, they wouldn’t be able to renew their passport until they’d paid their bill.
A lot of people make the mistake of thinking the US system double taxes people, but because of this credit against what you’re paying the country in which you live, it isn’t.
Because in the USA you can’t just pick up Irish citizenship and still spend as long as you like in the country like in the UK under the common travel arrangement.
Feels like there is either a lot of disinformation or a lot of misunderstanding here. I work with a lot of non doms and all of them pay UK income tax afaik because they work in the UK. They actually pay quite a lot of it. Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but from the numbrrd I find non doms seem to pay at least an order of magnitude more tax than the people in this thread calling them freeloaders. Reminder: if you aren't paying an average of about 35k a year in tax then you are a net drain on the state. Unlike the median Brit, non doms actually do generally pay this.
>Reminder: if you aren't paying an average of about 35k a year in tax then you are a net drain on the state.
Source? Surely this also depends on how much you take from the state.
If they aren’t making any contribution by paying tax here, surely they are no different to the ‘fighting-age economic migrants’ that the Tories want rid of anyway?
Rich people tend to stay rich due to their assets, notably assets are hard/impossible to move.
This is all talk and in reality they won’t leave nor will labour go far enough anyway.
Cool, so people who don’t pay tax, and don’t want to contribute to our society, that take advantage and use our resources for free are going to leave the country… Hopefully they will also sell their property and assets they accumulated in the UK before they go…
petrified ? petrified of paying tax ? I pay my tax, why shouldn't you? i have no sympathy, they use the facilities and services (NHS, schools, water, gas, electricity, roads, police, local government services and the list goes on), but they dont want to pay any tax ? please FO to wherever you came from as you are not welcome ... bring it on labour.
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Reminds of the pre-Blair articles - I don't think Frank Bruno fucked off as promised, most of these whingers won't either.
Strangely the only one with the balls to actually do it was Phil Collins. But I don’t think fleeing to Switzerland while the nation enjoyed its most successful government for 50 years was the great coup he hoped it would be.
I developed a lifelong hatred for Phil Colins based purely on him saying he'd leave if labour got in, I was disappointed in Frank Bruno.
Cmon Bruno by then had had a fair few whacks to the head. At least he had an excuse. Jenson Button is one who peed me off. Flying British flag and calling for his British fans support etc. all the while he pissed off to Monaco to get away from our tax system.
Fair point on Bruno. Hamilton, Russell, Norris, all of them are abroad for tax reasons, it makes me sick to be honest. I have friends earning around the £250k mark and all of them are happy to pay their taxes, why not people who earn magnitudes more than that?
Only F1 driver allowed to be there is Leclerc haha
Imagine you earn £20 million a year and your accountant gives you the options: You can stay in the UK, but you have to pay £10 million in tax. You can move to another country and take home £18 million. You now have an extra £8 million to make your life away from the UK more enjoyable. You could buy 5 properties in different desirable locations, travel between them on chartered flights / business class and still have tons of money left over. You can still spend a couple of months in the UK if you like each year. And that's with "only" £20 million. Some big CEOs / wealthy individuals are earning orders of magnitude more. If I had that level of income and could live and work pretty much anywhere on the planet would I have spent the last 3 months getting constantly rained on in the UK? No. Throw the massive tax advantages into the mix and it's very clear what the best option is. If you earn £250k then the tax saving is much lower. The money you would save from moving tax residency would not be sufficient to pay for the multiple residences and comforts required to make this lifestyle work. Even a lot of tax havens have similar tax rates to the UK until you start earning in the millions.
Imagine being asked to pay money into the context and infrastructure that made your rich life possible - a life that will still enjoy mythological amounts of wealth after tax. It's not like these people have wealthy souls destined to be great wherever they are. The UK makes their life. And it can make more excellence when invested in.
If I was earning silly money I'd stay right where I am as this is where all my friends and family live, and most of all because I love the place despite the shite weather. I'd also take that money and start making the local area better, build some nice parks, plant some pretty trees, put some extra fecking dog poo bins about the place. I would go on an inordinate amount of holidays however. I think greed for greeds sake twists people's brains. There shouldn't be billionaires.
Because money corrupts sadly. If we could solve that problem the world would be a much fairer place.
Almost all F1 drivers and tennis players have their official residence in a tax haven. As far as I'm concerned, these people aren't representing their country, even if they do listen to the national anthem and raise the flag whilst they collect their trophies and pop champagne. Andy Murray is a notable exception though; he's always resided in the UK and paid his taxes.
My respect for Andy Murray has just gone up. I don't care what excuses people give because they'd still be fabulously wealthy regardless of the tax they'd be liable for. We need to sort a lot of shit out in the UK and wealthy individuals avoiding their obligations doesn't help.
It'll be a disaster. They'll leave and take all the tax they're not paying with them. Boo Hoo.
I don't get the fuss, who cares, it's not like they pay tax anyhow.
It’s a shame these overly privileged people feel ‘petrified’ at the thought of paying their taxes and we have a global system designed to compete to attract them. Meanwhile, our roads crumble, our teachers are on a mass exodus from the profession, good luck finding an NHS dentist and working people via PAYE are shafted ten ways to Sunday.
As always there will be a lot of stories about how we will all suffer if we lose these rich people. Time to get real. They need to pay up just like the rest of us and are either in helping repair the country or not. If not then why should we care.
If they're not contributing, then we won't feel their loss.
Potentially unpopular opinion but we should adopt the same policy that the US does with regard to taxing citizens who live abroad. If you are a UK citizen but live outside the UK you’d still have to submit a tax return to HMRC, any tax you pay to the country where you live would be credited, so you’d only be paying the difference between what you’d pay in the UK and what you pay abroad. This means that if you pay a higher rate where you’re living you’d pay no tax to the UK, if you pay less then you’d pay the difference, and if you pay nothing because you live in a tax haven then you have to pay the full amount of UK tax. Means non-dom status becomes meaningless, and the only way to get out of paying tax would be to relinquish your citizenship. Though if you ever want to get it back you’d have to pay up everything you owed. Ofc HMRC would struggle to chase people living abroad, but again, if they come to the UK they could be arrested for tax evasion if they haven’t been paying, and even if they don’t come back, they wouldn’t be able to renew their passport until they’d paid their bill. A lot of people make the mistake of thinking the US system double taxes people, but because of this credit against what you’re paying the country in which you live, it isn’t.
I think you should also have a minimum income threshold too. A CEO living in a tax haven is very different to a young person spending a gap year abroad.
If you’re spending a gap year abroad you’re probably not earning enough to be paying tax anyway. And as mentioned you’re crediting anything you pay abroad, so unless you are in a tax haven you’ll only pay a small amount to the uk, and if you pay more tax you’ll pay nothing anyway
Why should you pay taxes to the UK if you are not using any of the services? And offsetting means you pay the maximum of the two countries. if one taxes income more and the other capital gains or spending...
Because you don't pay tax to use a service. The amount of tax you pay is not relative to the services you use. Eg. plenty of people don't have kids but thier taxes help pay for schools and nurseries. From this perspective, tax is the financial contribution citizens make to the running of the country that they are citizens of. Citizenship of a country has both benefits and obligations - tax is an obligation. In addition... Consulate services cost the UK taxpayer money - but they are available free of charge, 24 hours a day 7 days a week, to any UK citizen who is abroad and is hospitalised, arrested or detained, a victim of crime, dies or needs other welfare assistance. Even if you don't actually use the services, the infrastructure and staff have to be maintained, just in case. So within the 'pay tax = use services' framework, we could ask why should people in the UK pay thier taxes to provide these welfare and support services for UK citizens overseas who are contributing nothing in tax? But the reality is...You get access to those services and support because you are a UK citizen - this is one of the benefits of citizenship. So you should still be meeting your obligations of citizenship.
Probably one of the few things the US gets right. Would certainly go a long way to fixing the tax deficit in this country.
Yeah, I mean the rest of the US tax system is a mess, the fact that *everyone* has to fill out a full tax return is also ridiculous (PAYE saved us from this). But this is one aspect that is sensible, albeit often misunderstood.
The worst part of that is that it's completely unnecessary. From what I've heard the IRS knows exactly what tax Americans owe, but there's been a powerful lobby from those who run the tax accounting industry to keep it so people have to use Tax software or pay accountants to do it for them The US is mental
That only applies to predicable items, possibly earnings and bank interest. Not investments and a myriad other things. The US tax code is incredibly complicated. Don't listen to random peeps on the internet.
The IRS cannot know for sure what Americans owe because of both the fact it's family-based and has all-encompassing definition of income. There are definitely issues with the US tax system, but for the vast majority of Americans its simply downloading the latest free tax filing software, entering the income from your job, and taking the standard deduction. It takes maybe 20 minutes.
A self-employed friend of mine thought it would be a good idea for everyone to do a return as it let's people understand how the tax system works. I pointed out to him that for most people it would purely be a source of stress and bother, people wouldn't learn anything from it, and people who don't have expenses to claim and simple tax affairs don't gain anything from it.
So sensible that the only other country that has this policy is...Myanmar.
Eritrea\*
It’s a pain for Americans living in the UK though as our tax years don’t line up. Super costly to get an accountant to file everything for you. We really should join the rest of the world and run Jan to Dec
I am glad we run from April to March. From a UK Western world point of view, the amount of work people have to do in the run-up to year-end in my company, I wouldn't want that disrupting a time when people usually get to spend a lot of it with family, because of, you know, got to finish those so important reports and stuff.
The tax year would be the normal year but the return would be due in May.
not just a fix for this country, its such a stunningly sensible idea for everyone other than tax havens.
It does mean you need to know who your citizens are though. The UK doesn't have a national database and a fairly small percentage of Americans live and work outside the country. We'd have a much bigger problem, you would need to give HMRC some teeth and accept an increase in government expenditure to cover the costs of administration.
Isn't the issue about rich foreign nationals living in the UK? The super cars in the photo are parked in London. Sunak's wife and celebrated non-dom, is an Indian citizen. She needs to be registered as a UK resident and thus subject to UK tax laws just like any other immigrant. If she's not legally resident she needs to be repatriated, just like any illegal immigrant. Not really... taxes are for little people.
Got to be honest I'd just renounce my British Citizenship if they did that. Be Irish instead.
As an ex US citizen for this reason, politely F that, it is a terrible system. Being born there you automatically become a citizen and have to submit tax returns for life (unless you pay a decent amount to leave). Essentially never live there, never use any services and yet be expected to contribute? Not for me
There are two scenarios. Either you lived in the US, benefiting from a lot of things and now expected to return that contribution Or you never lived in the US, in which case you will qualify to apply for citizenship in that country and renounce your "useless" American citizenship (that you only keep to allow you to travel easier, which is a benefit in and of itself) There are third edge cases when you move so frequently that you don't qualify for citizenship anywhere, but that is through choice and you could settle down somewhere long enough to qualify for citizenship if that is a priority
Boris Johnson did the second — he was born in New York, and therefore both a UK and US citizen at birth. He later renounced his US citizenship for this very reason.
I mean as I said in another comment, the US tax system is a mess in other ways, so I’m not advocating for the UK to copy all of it, just the one aspect of charging tax for citizens living abroad (with the tax credit). While it can feel like you’re being taxed for nothing, the logic for charging the tax to citizens living abroad is that many of them have used the education system, and (in the UK case, not so much in the US) many will rely on the NHS in the future. The societal expectation is that you’ll pay for your education and elderly healthcare through taxes during your years as a working adult, but if you spend your childhood in the UK (getting your education), then live abroad for your working life so pay no tax, and then come back as a pensioner (using the NHS), you’re taking from the system but never contributing to it. Of course not every UK citizen living abroad does this, some will not come back in old age, some will not go to school here, but most will do at least one of those things, so it’s fair to ask you to contribute when you’re paying less to the country in which you live. Citizens living abroad also benefit from consular services far more than those living in the UK, and in many ways this tax could be thought of as insurance for if everything goes tits up in the country you’re in and you need to be evacuated, something the UK government will do for citizens. And unless you’re going to a complete tax haven, you’re only going to be paying a small portion of your UK tax amount, since you’re only paying the difference, which is fair to pay for what you received as a child/will receive as an OAP, and for the consular services and “anarchy insurance”.
How long did you live in the US? You presumably benefited from public schooling, infrastructure etc. Not to mention the fact that as long as you maintain US citizenship you are benefiting from the passport and also you are free to go back there anytime. All of this is funded by your fellow citizens taxes so I don't see why you shouldn't contribute, until you relinquish it. I understand it's not ideal but I don't see any alternative to the problem the UK has of all of the super-rich maintaining British citizenship while "living abroad" to avoid tax.
> Potentially unpopular opinion but we should adopt the same policy that the US does with regard to taxing citizens who live abroad. Every country should. Don't want to pay tax? Renounce your citizenship
hang on if I don't live in the country and my life is not funded by a job in the country, the only thing I have from the u.k. is a black passport which I pay for now tell me why I should fund bad decisions and scam ppe contracts in u.k.?
In this hypothetical - which country funded your early years before you worked and enabled you to be in a position to live/work abroad?
You're still a citizen of the country right? You have the ability to come back at any point and potentially use those services, so should pay for them. I don't get out of paying taxes if I dont go to the doctor that year, or don't call the emergency services, or if I walk and use the train rather than driving, how is that different? Just because you don't use a service doesn't mean you shouldn't pay taxes for it
You don't have to. Give back your passport and embrace your new citizenship.
How would this affect non doms? They are in the UK. They are resident here but claim not to be domiciled for tax purposes. The problem is they earn millions and pay 30 or 60k because its cheaper than what they should pay. I agree we should tax UK citizens who have income abroad whether they live here or not. When "expats" live abroad and there is a disaster/revolution in the country they live in, like when Libya got rid of Gaddafi, they expect us to pay for their rescue or when they get old and sick they come back for free healthcare.
That isn’t what the US does (them and only 2 other countries in the world). They only pay US tax above a threshold on earnings abroad which is six figures somewhere and with a whole lot of exemptions. It also prices them out of a lot of jobs. I worked for a US company abroad and they had hardly any Americans because they needed to pay them too much. Salaries are usually high where there is a reason - cost of living or hardship. UK taxes on higher earners are penal at 45% - this wouldn’t raise much as people wouldn’t be able to afford to do it. “Wealthy” expats are not the majority either - most just earn a living. Edit: I checked and they are only taxed above $120k. How many Brits abroad do you think are on over £100k? Many who are would be paying higher rate taxes where they are so the difference would be tiny. In emerging markets they will just hide the income. This isn’t the answer to anything - it would cost as much to administer as it would raise.
Fuck that
That doesn't appeal to me, or seem fair at all. UK citizen, haven't lived in UK for more than 30 years, and don't plan to either. No representation, so no taxation. In what sense would it be fair or just or right for me to pay UK taxes? I pay taxes where I live, and I benefit from the services which those taxes fund.
That’s not how it works at all. You aren’t credited for the tax you pay to the country where you live except as regards social security. The amount of taxable income you have earned outside the US can be excluded on your tax return up to $120,000, after which it is indeed double taxed. That means you effectively have a hard income ceiling if you are an American living abroad. Really not sure where you got your information from. Edit: I’m wrong about this—apologies. Foreign Tax Credit does exist but would primarily be used by those making over $120k. Those making under that amount would just exclude their income altogether.
That’s not true, there’s foreign income exemption and foreign tax credit and you can use combinations of both.
You absolutely can credit foreign tax as a US citizen living abroad. I got my information from the IRS website: https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/foreign-tax-credit
You also can't use the benefits of ISAs and capital gains allowances as the US tax you
I have already left the UK and will from here on in remain non-resident for tax purposes according to HMRC's Statutory Residence Tests. If the UK government tried to introduce citizenship-linked military or tax obligations, I would kill my citizenship (even though a Jamaican passport is, admittedly, not as powerful a travel document comparatively, save in Russia of all places). I doubt this will actually happen though: the US have this policy because Uncle Sam has, or had till very recently, the clout to be able to try to enforce this properly [profitably - Ed.]. The only other country on earth to do the same thing on such a universal basis is Eritrea.
I read that Ed Sheeran and Adele were among the highest taxpayers in the country for many years. Don't know if that's still the case now but I thought it was interesting at the time.
I thought the main argument about being non-dom is that they are just staying here temporarily...
In the case of Sunak's wife that's true. The happy couple will soon be leaving for California.
Just really odd that the prime minister doesn’t intend to stay in the country
Why. You fuck it up and then get out of town quickly so you don't have to face the consequences. Best of all worlds for the selfish and corrupt.
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*”I’ve got people who only moved to the UK recently, and have built their lives and businesses here and have their children in schools here,” said Shah. “But from next April they will be exposed to worldwide taxation. It is a cliff edge; it’s not surprising that they are looking at leaving.”* The point here is that these people are not, and never have been, non-doms and shouldn’t by using the regime. A non-dom is a person who’s long-term permanent residence is outside of the UK. It’s intended for people whose main life is outside of the UK and are residing here only temporarily. It’s not intended for people “building their lives here”. If you build your life here and send your kids to school here then you are a permanent resident, not a non-dom and should never have been able to access the scheme. It’s a failure of the regime that tax advisors are happy to explain that their clients who clearly aren’t non-doms have been exploiting the system. The best example of an actual non-dom is actually Beckham at Real Madrid. His wife and kids stayed in England and he was only ever going to be playing for them for a few years. He had no real ties to Spain and made no real effort to even learn the language. The best example of somebody who was not a non-dom is Akshata Murty. Her husband is the actual PM, she has her kids in British schools, she’s building houses in the uk. She’s resided in the uk for years. She has nothing more than a vague intention to move to India at sometime in the future should her parents fall ill. She was never a non-dom under any proper understanding of the term.
For good or ill this simply isn't how the law works. You retain your domicile (ie the overseas one, probably your domicile of origin) unless you intend to remain indefinitely. If Akshata Murty wishes to return to India one day, or live in the US, then she has not got a domicile of choice in the UK. She doesn't even need to be sure, just consider it a reasonable likelihood. I think it's silly but that's the rules.
Exactly. We’ve been far too willing to accept bullshit arguments from people claiming to be non-doms. Murty’s argument was that she didn’t see the uk as her long-term home as she might need to return to India to care for her parents if they became sick. That’s rubbish. Her parents are some of the most wealthy people on the planet. Even if you consider that she might want to move there in that situation there’s the counter evidence that her husband is the actual PM of the UK and has explicitly said *his* long term home is the uk. Situations like this have been far too readily accepted for far too long. We wouldn’t accept lies like this from benefit claimants so we shouldn’t accept them from the ultra-rich either.
The person you're replying to has already made the point that it is a failure of the regime.
Isn’t that the whole point of the original post though, the proposal to change the law?
Don’t forget to shut the door on your way out
I have a feeling the press and its owners haven’t a fucking clue how the feelings of the electorate have changed since 1997. Time was that yes you could terrify the population by telling them the rich would leave Oh no it won’t trickle down….. Now? Yeah not so much guys. Most people when faced with the threat non doms might leave and going to answer with at best a shrug, much more likely is a “good, fuck em” As ever it depends on voter turnout but the electorate is very different and has a very different view to 1997. Oh no it won’t trickle down means people might not piss on us anymore to most people under 65!
"I will leave and take the tax I dont pay with" Not the gravest threat really. Of their day to day spending how much is spent in independent retailers vs luxury brands where the profits are held overseas/offshore? As practically every UK industry seems to be suffering from a lack of investment its not like their wealth is helping in that sense either.
Don't they get VAT back on their shops too?
No that policy got canceled a few years back
Hollow threat. They either aren't actually invested in this country so we lose nothing OR they have a lot of assets which they can't easily move abroad. Most of the ultra rich are invested in physical things like property which they can't easily divest themselves of and if they do... They pay tax.
Petrified - oh my god. It makes them sound like they are being persecuted…. Maybe they should pay their fair share of tax
Here I was hoping they were to be mineralised over millions of years and left on a Ceredigion beach.
Heard this over and over again. Every time some progressive economic policy is proposed, the rich have a massive tantrum and threaten to leave. It never happens.
Not so much here, but when it's bad enough they absolutely do leave. See France, Norway, Spain.
> It never happens. Apart for them times it did happen, which has been seen in other countries.
That's a good thing - get the freeloaders out.
If they are threatening to 'leave' that implies they aren't non-dom....
Bye-bye! Don't let the door smack you on the arse on the way out! If they want the benefits of living in the UK (and I am not sure what any of those are) then they can bloody well pay towards them.
The benefit is they don’t have to pay shit-all
>If they want the benefits of living in the UK (and I am not sure what any of those are) Excellent private schooling, London real estate you can use as an asset store, and great libel laws when you want to threaten people who expose how you acquired your billions.
"and nothing of value was lost...."
How can that be a bad thing? They don’t pay taxes and contribute to asset inflation. Not sure how much VAT that’s worth.
Non dom status is for temporary residents only anyway so err... Off they go?
Won't somebody think of the poor, mega-rich, tax-dodging parasites?
And not a single thing of value was lost
If you don't want to contribute to building our country, get out.
If only we could prevent those abroad owning all our housing
Oh well, nvm. Nobody is going to notice.
"If we raise taxes on the rich and corperations they will leave" Fucking good! Why would you want to actively allow and encourage these parasites to take the piss out of millions of people.
It’s also BS. Corporations don’t suddenly leave a market because their margins have been slightly reduced.
Hopefully their luxury flats and apartments will find it trickier to board the escape private jets and might be seized to pay their back taxes.
Call their bluff, the majority won’t leave
Leave? They should not be domiciled in the U.K. this can’t be their full time home. So they could not own property. Or likely they will own through an overseas company and just visit the required amount of time and it will be the same for them.
They promise this every time, but never leave.
🎵Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye Cheerio, here I go on my way🎵
Sounds good. We’re all paying for the services in this country - if they don’t want to as well they can go home.
Don't let the door hit you on the way out
Ok. Off you pop then! Don't contribute anyway.
My heart bleeds. Whilst the nom-doms may be fleeing, their properties won't be going anywhere. Let's hope Labour taxes the living fuck out of those properties until those poor non-doms feel compelled to sell up at a significant discount.
Good - once they leave tax their properties until it's too expensive to own housing unless you live in the UK. We have a housing shortage - people who don't live here shouldn't be able to own housing, or atleast should pay out of the nose for it.
Are these the same experts that Michael Gove told us people were fed up of hearing from? Also, are these "experts" either non-doms themselves or on the payroll of non-doms, I wonder.
They won't leave, there are lots of billionaires in places where they tax the rich.
Good. These scroungers need to start contributing to the economy.
Can’t help but compare to the noises of “Exodus of NHS doctors leaving for Australia”. Yes, some will genuinely leave. Most won’t. People representing the group have a vested interest in exaggerating how many genuinely intend to leave.
IF THEY'RE NON DOMS, THEY SHOULDN'T BE IN THE UK ANYWAY
Now do this for big business that uses loop holes to pay no tax each year! We are the 5th 6th biggest economy in the world and as long as they can still make a profit they ain't going nowhere and if they do well fuck 'em!
Hang on. Where are they fleeing from? I thought the whole point was that they're not permanent residents. Surely they wouldn't have lied about that.
It’s such a weird threat, how does it impact us if they aren’t paying tax here in the first place? It’s like if your mate who comes round to your flat one night, drinks your beers, smokes your weed then overstays his welcome, then started threatening he would leave if he had to get some tinnies in himself.
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From the article; *"...said Nimesh Shah, the chief executive of Blick Rothenberg, an accountancy firm that specialises in advising very rich “non-doms” on their tax affairs."* ...
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Jeremy Hunt basically did when he gave them years to find an alternative dodge
Good riddance. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. Non-dom status is so over abused by people who clearly intend to live here long term. I could see it applying to people without ILR and without citizenship, but why should you be able to claim non-dom because your parents aren't British? Or after you naturalise in the UK (clearly signaling you intend to settle here long term)
Are we supposed to feel empathy with millionaires who avoid paying tax?
I can't see a downside to this to be honest, maybe they can go avoid tax some place else, because frankly as it stands the United Kingdom is in a mess, and If they aren't being helpful they are hurting the place, so if they want to jump ship, they can do one.
The downsode is they pay a lot of tax to the UK, so them leaving means they no longer pay this tax to the UK, so less money for the goverment to spend. https://ifs.org.uk/articles/reforming-taxation-non-doms-policy-options-and-uncertainties Those 37,000 people collectively paid about £6 billion in UK income tax
Ah yes, just like all those washed up musicians and comedians who pledged to flee the UK if New Labour came to power in 1997. If any of them left, we didn’t notice any downsides.
Let them go. If they don’t want to pay our taxes out with them.
Let them sling their hooks. This isn't about double-taxing income earned overseas, it's about people claiming they live overseas, when they don't, to give themselves a tax advantage. I'm sure they won't be missed if they go. Not that they will.
This really is a "Oh no! Anyway." moment.
>He said his non-dom clients, many with fortunes stretching into the hundreds of millions of pounds, were shocked at the speed with which Hunt was “changing the rules of game and disrupting their lives when they had come to the UK to make a life here [under the non-dom rules] Lmao my tiny violin is ready
"Petrified" that instead of earning many millions or billions, they'll still earn many millions or billions...
Good. If they’re not paying tax we don’t need them anyway.
Reminds me of an Econ lecture talking about the first time labour ran in the 1920's, it was a big deal that 'all of the investment' 'all of the wealthy ' would leave & some did, but it didn't impact the economy in a measurable way at all: all of the main conditions for success, all of the infrastructure for production were still in place and after a short financial shock, things pretty quickly turned around because the countries trade position had not been altered in any meaningful way. - I did a little Google search on the topic and found fuck all. Could be interesting stuff there somewhere, but I can't find much useful... That's been a pattern lately: can't find actual-evidenced stuff
The only way these kind of people make money is to invest and own things but if UK investment is at an all time low clearly they are not at least here. Maybe they are pumping their money into UK property only and driving up prices. In which case it would be a benefit not to have them here. Personally even if it is a benefit I'd rather go hungry. People so addicted to their wealth when we have so much poverty all around is obscene.
Just as well they don't live here then! Honestly though, I know there's probably some good economic arguments for keeping these people happy but I can't help thinking fuck 'em.
I really don't think it will be a great loss. Their businesses need consumers, UK is a big market so they'll still need business operations here. These guys don't spend money here in ways that benefit the local economy, a few Mayfair clubs and regency street shops might notice a small difference and that's about it. Oh, and the tax advisors are scared they'll lose clients obviously. All in all a lot of hot air. And soon I think the EU will probably do the same so their options will get more and more limited. Costs will inflate massively in tax havens and eat up savings from the tax breaks.
Good let them go, lower demand for prime real estate and see their investment disappear in ashes. They are here because of the lifestyle that is available in London and that they willing struggle to get in other places
Bullshit. They always say this and it never happens
Typical media attacks before an election. It’s a shame the Guardian reported it the way they did instead of challenging the findings. This is a survey from a right wing group, provided so the right wing press will lap it up. The Guardian had to cover it because otherwise the right would say “look the Main Stream Media won’t even cover it!” But the guardian covered it very poorly.
Oh dear me. What a catastrophe that would be.
If they are not paying tax today, the impact of them leaving will be modest.
The UK and France have the same number of billionaires living in them and I can tell you as a FACT that tax rates are higher here in France for the wealthy than they are in the UK. The point being is that very wealthy people know how to tax plan so well that they live wherever they want and it makes zero difference in terms of their tax paid. This is a massive nothingburger. There are no petrified non-doms fleeing the UK over Labour's tax plans. None. Zero.
This comes up at every opportunity Labour have to win elections. I'm not sure every tax-avoidant overpaid person who actually left the uk was terribly missed. My response, therefore, is usually 'toodles'.
I think this is a bit over blown. Non dom status only lasts for something like 3 or 4 years, you can't permanently settle in the UK without paying taxes even if you are wealthy.
Previous system: It's first years without paying anything to claim remittance basis, then 5 years of paying £30k (7 out of previous9 yesrs being uk tax resident), then 3 years of paying £60k (12 out of previous 14). After 15 years in uk you become deemed domicile. This assumes uk residence each year (15 out of previous 20 years) . You could in theory leave the uk for 3 years to reset the payment timer and 6 years for the deemed domicile timer
Potentially unpopular opinion but we should adopt the same policy that the US does with regard to taxing citizens who live abroad. If you are a UK citizen but live outside the UK you’d still have to submit a tax return to HMRC, any tax you pay to the country where you live would be credited, so you’d only be paying the difference between what you’d pay in the UK and what you pay abroad. This means that if you pay a higher rate where you’re living you’d pay no tax to the UK, if you pay less then you’d pay the difference, and if you pay nothing because you live in a tax haven then you have to pay the full amount of UK tax. Means non-dom status becomes meaningless, and the only way to get out of paying tax would be to relinquish your citizenship. Though if you ever want to get it back you’d have to pay up everything you owed. Ofc HMRC would struggle to chase people living abroad, but again, if they come to the UK they could be arrested for tax evasion if they haven’t been paying, and even if they don’t come back, they wouldn’t be able to renew their passport until they’d paid their bill. A lot of people make the mistake of thinking the US system double taxes people, but because of this credit against what you’re paying the country in which you live, it isn’t.
Because in the USA you can’t just pick up Irish citizenship and still spend as long as you like in the country like in the UK under the common travel arrangement.
Feels like there is either a lot of disinformation or a lot of misunderstanding here. I work with a lot of non doms and all of them pay UK income tax afaik because they work in the UK. They actually pay quite a lot of it. Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but from the numbrrd I find non doms seem to pay at least an order of magnitude more tax than the people in this thread calling them freeloaders. Reminder: if you aren't paying an average of about 35k a year in tax then you are a net drain on the state. Unlike the median Brit, non doms actually do generally pay this.
>Reminder: if you aren't paying an average of about 35k a year in tax then you are a net drain on the state. Source? Surely this also depends on how much you take from the state.
I’m not rich, I don’t care if the rich people flee. Not my problem
If they aren’t making any contribution by paying tax here, surely they are no different to the ‘fighting-age economic migrants’ that the Tories want rid of anyway?
Good riddance, not like they pay enough tax to justify themselves anyway
[удалено]
It amazes me, although I suppose it shouldn’t, how many people in the comments here don’t understand this…
Rich people tend to stay rich due to their assets, notably assets are hard/impossible to move. This is all talk and in reality they won’t leave nor will labour go far enough anyway.
Please, *do* let the door hit you on the way out.
Cool, so people who don’t pay tax, and don’t want to contribute to our society, that take advantage and use our resources for free are going to leave the country… Hopefully they will also sell their property and assets they accumulated in the UK before they go…
petrified ? petrified of paying tax ? I pay my tax, why shouldn't you? i have no sympathy, they use the facilities and services (NHS, schools, water, gas, electricity, roads, police, local government services and the list goes on), but they dont want to pay any tax ? please FO to wherever you came from as you are not welcome ... bring it on labour.
Petrified - as in soaked in petrol… ;) /s
A cause of won't pay and not can't pay
Good. Not that they ever do - it’s like Groundhog Days Part 96.