Campaigners have renewed calls for the UK government to tax extreme wealth after HMRC data showed ‘scare stories’ over a non-dom exodus proved largely unfounded.
A recent report by the Financial Times inspected the most recent tax data and found no evidence to suggest more non-doms had left Britain in response to Rachel Reeves’ 2024 Budget than the 25% officially predicted by the OBR.
This is despite a series of surveys and reports following the Budget that it was causing a mass exodus of non-doms and wealthy individuals from the country.
Tax Justice Network has condemned these now-debunked estimations as ‘scare stories’, renewing its call for a wealth tax to be implemented to reduce inequality and help fund government spending.
“Every other week now there’s more evidence confirming the Tax Justice Network’s thorough debunking of these scare stories and showing just how far opponents of wealth taxes are willing to go. Governments should take heed, and wise up.” said Tax Justice Network head of communications Mark Bou Mansour.
“78% of Britons and 80% of UK millionaires support a wealth tax but UK media and the UK government have been completely captured by a fabrication of lobbyists.”
“The UK must make sure its tax policy represents the will of its people, not the yarn of lobbyists, and begin again to tax extreme wealth.”
Misinformation and misconceptions about wealth
Mansour also laid responsibility for stoking fears of a non-dom exodus at the feet of newsrooms that published stories spreading these predictions over the past year.
“There will always be people willing to make data-denying claims to journalists about how very dangerous it would be to tax the extremely wealthy a bit more fairly, while ignoring evidence on the economic harms of extreme wealth,” he said.
“If journalists and editors don’t want to become propagandists for extreme inequality, they should treat these statements with the caution they deserve.”
Tax Justice Network argues that there is a public misconception about how wealth works, which leads to fears of superrich individuals emigrating and the effect this phenomenon would cause.
The organisation cites a wide range of evidence on how extreme wealth is harmful to economies and societies, and how it is linked to lower productivity, more debt, and even reduced life expectancy.
Reeves has faced continued calls to implement a wealth tax as a possible solution to the government’s spending crisis and national economic inequality.
The Chancellor is also reportedly considering a new tax levied on the sale of homes to replace stamp duty tax. This proposed tax would be paid by the homeowner upon the sale of a property worth more than £500,000.
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