A report conducted by Investment Researchers Henley & Partners has found that over 6,000 millionaires will leave Britain by the end of December to avoid what they foresee as a Labour tax grab.
The report by the firm found that 68pc of Britain’s wealthiest residents who plan to leave the country will vacate to Europe, with the most favoured destinations being Italy, Malta, Greece, Portugal, Switzerland, Monaco, Cyprus, France, Spain, and the Netherlands. The exodus will have a knock-on effect on the economy, as businesses have a significant positive spillover effect on the middle class as they create large numbers of well-paying jobs in their base country.
The UK will also lose more than 800 wealthy individuals to the United Arab Emirates, 720 to the United States, 300 to Australasian countries, and 250 to Caribbean nations. Rachel Reeves has vowed to end the UK’s non-domiciled tax regime after Jeremy Hunt, the former chancellor, increased tax on non-doms earlier in the year.
Scrapping the status would cost the country £6.5bn and wipe out 23,000 jobs over the next six years due to lost investment. Fears that inheritance and capital gains tax will rise at the Budget next Wednesday have caused even more wealthy Britons to rush for the door, according to Henley & Partners.
The Chancellor has said she must raise taxes to fill a fiscal “black hole” of up to £40bn at Labour’s first major fiscal statement next month. The shortfall in the national finances has been disputed by experts and enlarged several times by the government, which signed off on bumper public-sector pay rises shortly after entering office in the summer.
