There was no magical property of London that attracts people DESPITE higher taxes.
Very difficult to have any policy discussion when a second order effect is involved.
It shows that trickle down economics doesn't happen.
The harm you're looking for is massively inflated asset prices, for example pushing housing out of the affordable range of normal residents and the actual tax payers.
So the mega rich turn out to be parasites in many ways.
that’s a very sinister way to describe the reward for their extraordinary efforts. who’s putting money in their hands? where did this ‘who’ get the money from?
If we're talking about foreign oligarchs living in London, I suspect a fair amount of the money is coming from Russian organized crime.
Taxing the billionaires is a net plus for any economy.
Is there's a serious hike in taxes the billionaires will just leave and open companies elsewhere
So basically just hoping that billionaires spend and trickle down.
if the uk wants tax money on revenue maybe they should incentivize these so-called super-rich to run their affairs from within the uk?
I think the optics are clearly bad but the question I think people really have to ask is what they rather these people paying something in the country, or nothing at all (because there’s nothing keeping them there if it’s viewed as too expensive to stay)
I did a quick check and it seems like non dom's are about 0.11% of UK residents and pay about 1.24% of UK taxes. And this doesn't account for indirect benefits such as taxes paid on wages they generate.
Sounds like it worked out as planned, since they're leaving now.
Plus, 40% inheritance tax is crazy. You'd have to sell off half of what you inherit to pay the tax. Sucks if you're a farmer or a multigenerational family business
There are also ways to reduce the tax rate, like through charitable donations.
Like in the US with estate taxes, relatively few people are affected by it.
It's also relatively easily defeated by transferring assets to others well in advance of your death, which is the kind of thing very wealthy people are more likely to be able to arrange.
> a centuries-old tax loophole, abolished in April, that catered to the global rich. The nondomiciled—or non-dom status, as it is known—allowed foreigners living in the U.K. to pay tax only on what they earned domestically. Profits made abroad were ignored unless brought into the U.K.
If I happen to work for a foreign corporation, I don’t get to skip paying tax.
Most of the world taxes only income earned in that country.
> If I happen to work for a foreign corporation, I don’t get to skip paying tax.
Sure, because you earned it your country, and not in the country of domicile of foreign corporation.
EDIT: Correction, I see now that most countries do tax worldwide income, just that they have DTA so you offset taxes paid abroad.
It's only the US which taxes worldwide income. It's not true for rest for the world.
https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/ireland/individual/taxes-on-per...
Still the common norm is that PIT is only levied on income earned in the country.
https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/work/taxes/income-taxe...
You mentioned Estonia in another comment - it might be the case that Estonia is a special case or has a scheme for attracting talent that doesn’t include worldwide tax
I see now that most countries do tax worldwide income, just that most of the time they have DTA agreements so you can offset tax paid in other countries against your tax bill.
“Failure” is of course subjective, but I would say that the gargantuan increase in wealth inequality is a datapoint in favour of suggesting that its a failed model.
Post-War consensus Britain was a golden age, and neoliberalism has been harmful to the quality of life for an overwhelming number of British people. This is just factual, by all the data we have.
Deng Xiaoping's "let some people get rich first" worked out pretty well.
We don't need a bigger market for luxury dog sitters or sports car manufacturing, better allocate those resources for childcare, elder care, or other chronically understaffed fields.
edit: The reality is they don't spend enough for it to offset the harms that wealth inequality brings.
I know a couple of people who have been using this London loophole as a way to avoid paying taxes anywhere at all. They are not residents here, they are not residents there, and their income is earnt globally. So they think they shouldn't have to pay tax to any particular country.
source? Has "the harms that wealth inequality brings" even been quantified?
I think we should be taking a page out of French History
Every so often I think the wealthy classes need a reminder that they only get to have what they have at the pleasure of the lower classes
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2025/07/the-british-we...
You cannot tax these people directly, because they'll leave.
You cannot have international cooperation on tax treaties because these people control states.
In other words: you can only tax them either through war, or by totally blowing up trade relationships.
Putin is estimated to be up to $200 billion in wealth.
The top 4 Americans are all more wealthy: Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Ellison.
This is much harder to evade - if you own most of Mayfair, you can't just move your assets elsewhere - they are very clearly tied to the location.
Of course, this would mean taxing powerful aristocrats, including the royal family. With their large majority, the British government had the opportunity to do this, but decided to take an easier path. The reason why this path was easier is now becoming clear to them.
Simple, and more effective!
As an example, Wouldn't that mean that if my startup raises a round of 1m for 10%, my NW would go to 0 to 9m. 6% of that would be around 0.5m, and 30% tax would mean I would have to pay 162,000 EUR in taxes.
As a cash poor founder how do you suggest I pay that.
That's why taxing income and not wealth has been the norm.
It's a loophole the mega-rich are using to avoid tax.
The other thing that's happened is that a lot of the mega-rich have lobbied to gradually chip away at inheritance taxes. So again they just pass the asset, paying a fraction of the taxes they'd have paid had they been a "normal" tax payer.
And one of the big things they've got? No capital gains on those stocks when passed to children.
So yeah, we need to tax assets as well as income. Because anything that's not taxed the rich just funnel money into it to avoid paying tax.
> There's been a big shift of rich people avoiding taking pay or dividends. Instead they get paid in stock, and then get interest free loans secured on that stock to actually spend money.
They have a stockholding in a firm, and the firm pays CIT on income earned. That sounds fair.
> The other thing that's happened is that a lot of the mega-rich have lobbied to gradually chip away at inheritance taxes. So again they just pass the asset, paying a fraction of the taxes they'd have paid had they been a "normal" tax payer.
Why should my kids be liable to pay a tax when they inherit my house? That house was bought by my income on which PIT was duty fully paid. Again sounds very fair to me.
> And one of the big things they've got? No capital gains on those stocks when passed to children.
Again sounds fair to me.
I assume a new government dept. has to be set up to oversee it. Or do the wealthy self assess? Are things like shares and investments valued once? Once per year? How is a company valued? How do you know if you qualify as wealthy? Do we value everyone’s wealth? Can’t the wealthy just relocate or move assets out of reach?
I don’t expect answers to this, I’m just thinking out loud as there seem to be a lot of challenges.
A few countries seem to have tried and continued to tax wealth but it seems far from proven and only seems to “work” in Switzerland, which is a bit of an outlier
I think the simpler solution if simply passing along the original cost basis to heirs (and without documentation it’s assumed to be zero). That way people or even families can defer taxes on income, but eventually they get paid.
There was a bit of a scandal a few years back at just how much input the Queen got to those sort of laws, but it didn't really have legs as everyone thought she was brilliant.
But if the same thing comes out about King Charles you can bet it's going to be a bigger stink.
The UK needs to radically reduce its social safety net and simultaneously cut taxes, at least for new companies and small businesses. The only way out is real, sustained, long term growth and innovation. Stealing ever more of a shrinking pie is already running out of steam.
I was under the impression they had done that already.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_government_aust...
Though one can't help but think it wont be radical enough for conservatives until we simply dispose of those unable to work through some dystopic mechanism or other.
[1]: Non-dom tax take jumped £100mn in 2023-24 despite falling numbers - https://on.ft.com/3Gx1MXU via @FT
The minimum corporate tax of 15% is one place to start:
And why not? We don't need the extra revenue. Why should we raise taxes on local companies when we don't want the money? Just because other countries can't control their spending why do we have to raise our taxes? It's stupid.
Also, smarter policy would be like what Estonia does
- CIT should only be applicable when dividends are paid. So corporations can reinvest that money in the business and not be taxed on it.
- PIT on dividend income should be 0, since that amount has already been taxed(CIT) and the stock holder has paid his due share on that income as a owner of corporation.
And even if you took let's say 95% of their wealth that wouldn't even pay down half of the US debt.
I think all this stuff ends up doing is being a brain drain to make people leave whatever country they're in for other countries
neonate•3h ago