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22 March 2013updated 26 Sep 2015 2:46pm

File this one away in the “we’ll see” pile

An exodus after the election?

By Alex Hern

The chief executive of deVere Group, “the world’s largest independent financial advisory firm”, wants you to know that this time, rich people really mean it when they say they’ll leave the country this time if taxes go up. Nick Green says:

The astute number crunchers at the Institute for Fiscal Studies have shown that the government will have little alternative but to borrow more or increase taxes to pay for the Chancellor’s budget. As this is after an election, a time when MPs can more afford to take controversial measures, it is highly probable that the new government would opt for the former [sic, but I think he means latter] – taxes would be hiked up…

As so-called ‘high tax Britain’ is set to become ‘even higher tax Britain’, I would fully expect there to be something of a wealth exodus from the UK as wealthy Brits and non-domiciled taxpayers in the UK seek to move themselves and assets to lower-tax jurisdictions in order to safeguard their funds.

We’ve already had that argument, of course. After the 50p tax was introduced, there was a drop in the number of bankers fleeing to Switzerland, with the majority of avoidance taking the form of bringing forward payments (which is part of the reason why cutting the rate so soon was a stupid idea – that’s not a trick you can perform twice). And we’ll see what happens from 1 April, but I’ll be we don’t get an exodus of bankers from Switzerland to Britain once the 50p tax dies either.

File this one away for the future, in other words – it could make tasty claim chowder.

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