Why Taxing the UK’s Rich Less May Make Sense Merryn Somerset Webb Demonstrators at a “No More Austerity 2.0” march in central London on June 7. Photographer: Henry Nicholls/AFP The Laffer Curve does exist. You may not want it to, but it does. The UK’s political class is in the process of learning this lesson. One of the first things Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves did was to make the global assets of those living in the UK but domiciled elsewhere for tax purposes (the “non-doms”) subject to UK inheritance tax. Those people have responded to that incentive exactly as one might expect. They are leaving. Exact numbers aren’t available, but many financial advisers will tell you of their fast-vanishing high-net worth clients—heading for the United Arab Emirates, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Malta and maybe even the US (there are some 70,000 applications for information on the new “gold Trump card” visa, apparently). Henley and Partners, a global relocation company, backs this up. It reports that inquiries on how to become a resident elsewhere were three times higher in the first three months of 2025 than the same period in 2024.
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Why Taxing the UK’s Rich Less May Make Sense
Merryn Somerset Webb

Demonstrators at a “No More Austerity 2.0” march in central London on June 7.
Photographer: Henry Nicholls/AFP
The Laffer Curve does exist. You may not want it to, but it does. The UK’s political class is in the process of learning this lesson. One of the first things Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves did was to make the global assets of those living in the UK but domiciled elsewhere for tax purposes (the “non-doms”) subject to UK inheritance tax.

Those people have responded to that incentive exactly as one might expect. They are leaving. Exact numbers aren’t available, but many financial advisers will tell you of their fast-vanishing high-net worth clients—heading for the United Arab Emirates, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Malta and maybe even the US (there are some 70,000 applications for information on the new “gold Trump card” visa, apparently). Henley and Partners, a global relocation company, backs this up. It reports that inquiries on how to become a resident elsewhere were three times higher in the first three months of 2025 than the same period in 2024.