Departing UK Millionaires

This morning I saw a report that stated that this year alone some 11,000 millionaires have or are expected to leave the UK.

This for a variety of reasons. The primary ones being higher taxes targeted at the wealthy, a general clouding of the economic prospects for the UK and a lack of incentives to generate wealth there.

I was surprised seeing these kind of numbers. These wealthy people are generally the ones who purchase higher end properties, thereby contributing to stamp duty revenue. They spend money and consume more and therefore contribute to the tax coffers, pay income tax and employ people in businesses they operate. If they leave, wouldn’t that have a huge impact on tax collection. By imposing a higher tax burden on the wealthy to collect more revenue it would have the exact opposite effect of driving them away and thereby leading to lower tax collection.

Countries everywhere are trying to attract the wealthy and here you have a country shooting itself in the foot by driving them away! I always regarded the UK as a wealthy nation. Beautiful stately homes, gardens and tops in art and culture. Who will support any of these if the wealthy abandon the country?

But the UK has been making a series of disastrous decisions recently, starting with Brexit, so perhaps it is not at all surprising.