Hi ,
In the next few days we're expecting the publication of this year's Sunday Times Rich List. Will the richest people in the UK be even richer, or will they be a couple of yachts down? I know you're on tenterhooks. But regardless of the exact numbers, a lot of the coverage of the rich list has already been written: over the last year, lobbyists have bent over backwards to depict the richest, most powerful people in the UK as victims.
Now, lets be very clear about how dubious some of this narrative is. One of the most popular claims is that the richest are "fleeing" the country. This particular claim originates not with a journalist, academic, or statistical organisation, but with Henley & Partners. Who're they? According to their website, they're a "global leader in residence and citizenship by investment" for wealthy individuals. Their report is a projection based on their survey of stated intentions by some of the UK's richest. In other words, this is based on lobbyists against taxes on the rich asking the question "Would you say you intend to leave the country if you're made to pay some extra tax?" to a small group of very rich people who have every incentive to answer yes.
So if these claims aren't particularly rigorous, what evidence do we have? Tax specialist Arun Advani carried out research on the last reform to non-dom taxation in 2017 and found that "an additional 6% of affected non-doms ceased to be tax resident in the UK due to the reform." The loss was vastly outweighed by increased tax revenue. This is a very different picture to the one painted by headlines using the word "exodus". It also seems fair to note that at the time, the Daily Mail claimed this 2017 reform would drive the super-rich to France.
New research this month from the US finds similarly: new taxes on the richest in the states of Massachusetts and Washington together raised over $3.4bn for early years education and community colleges, while the number of millionaires in both states increased. And this is about migration between American states, where it's much easier to move assets – as economist and activist Gary Stevenson has pointed out, the rich are "the least mobile people in the world" since it's pretty hard to move investments in property, for example, to other countries.
Instead of trying to convince us that the super-rich leaving the UK will damage the country, we need to be looking at the damage the super rich are doing to the country. We already know the super-rich live extremely high-carbon lifestyles and invest in some of the most damaging ways. We've seen profits at banks and energy companies skyrocket thanks to our surging bills. And we know that the UK's endless housing crisis and rising rents has created huge wealth for property investors like the aristocratic families that own and inherit vast amounts of land.
That's why we're asking for your help. We want to rebut the lobbyists for the super-rich and make the case for policies that would transform the UK to a more equal, greener, better society. But unlike the lobbyists, we haven't got any billionaire fortunes backing us up – all our successful campaigns are down to you.
So if you can, will you join the Equality Trust as a monthly supporter? If you’re unable to, a one-off donation can still go a long way to help us fight for equality this month.
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