£30,000 levy causes UK non-dom exodus

The number of non-dom residents in the UK dropped by almost 16,000 in a year after the Labour government brought in its £30,000 levy for the right to keep income and capital gains earned abroad beyond the Revenue’s clutches, official figures show.
 
HM Revenue and Customs has confirmed the number was down from 139,000 to 123,000 (11.5 per cent) in the year 2008-09 –  the first decline seen for five years.
 
Law firm McGrigors, which procured the figures under a Freedom of Information request, said: “It has been sufficiently irritating to drive thousands of them overseas."
 
“Unfortunately many of these high net worths will have taken the £30,000 annual levy as a message that the UK is not such a welcoming home to them. The spending power that has been lost to the UK economy is surely going to be far in excess of the income gained by the Treasury.”
 
HMRC collected £162m in the 2008/2009 tax year as a result of the levy, whereas non-doms are estimated to pay around £4bn in income tax each year on top of £3bn in other taxes such as capital gains, VAT and stamp duty. Based on those figures, an 11.5 per cent fall in non-doms equates to a loss in tax revenue of £800m.
 
Read a full report at the Telegraph ·