Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves has announced that the Labour Party will ‘abolish non-dom status, which top Tories have benefitted from while raising taxes on working people’. The announcement follows the recent controversy over the tax status of Akshata Murty, the chancellor’s wife.
The Labour Party’s press release states that a Labour government would:
‘Abolish non-dom status, and introduce a modern scheme for people who are genuinely living in the UK for short periods to allow us to continue to attract top international talent. This would put an end to the broken 200-year-old system that lets people dodge millions in tax, and bring our rules into line with those of system similar to other major economies like France, Germany and Canada.
Crack down on the use of hidden offshore trusts that allow people to avoid paying tax here in the UK.
Fast track the publication of the much-delayed register of overseas beneficial ownership of property in the UK, which is crucial for preventing companies' true owners from carrying out their tax affairs in secrecy. This includes sanctioned states like Russia and elsewhere.’
Writing in Tax Journal, former Treasury minister David Gauke observed: ‘The concern has always been that abolition will cost more revenue than it will raise. By definition, non-doms have looser ties to the UK than most of us and have choices as to where to live. Typically, they already pay a lot of tax directly to the UK exchequer, so the risk is that the entirety of this revenue is lost if they cease to be resident here.’
‘I put these points as questions not assertions because the nature of this debate is that there is much uncertainty as to the answers,’ Gauke wrote. ‘The Treasury or HMRC (or anyone else) cannot predict with much confidence what the behavioural response will be to a change of policy. The sky has not fallen in so far, some will argue, but an ill-judged reform could still provoke a fiscally and economically damaging behavioural response.’
Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves has announced that the Labour Party will ‘abolish non-dom status, which top Tories have benefitted from while raising taxes on working people’. The announcement follows the recent controversy over the tax status of Akshata Murty, the chancellor’s wife.
The Labour Party’s press release states that a Labour government would:
‘Abolish non-dom status, and introduce a modern scheme for people who are genuinely living in the UK for short periods to allow us to continue to attract top international talent. This would put an end to the broken 200-year-old system that lets people dodge millions in tax, and bring our rules into line with those of system similar to other major economies like France, Germany and Canada.
Crack down on the use of hidden offshore trusts that allow people to avoid paying tax here in the UK.
Fast track the publication of the much-delayed register of overseas beneficial ownership of property in the UK, which is crucial for preventing companies' true owners from carrying out their tax affairs in secrecy. This includes sanctioned states like Russia and elsewhere.’
Writing in Tax Journal, former Treasury minister David Gauke observed: ‘The concern has always been that abolition will cost more revenue than it will raise. By definition, non-doms have looser ties to the UK than most of us and have choices as to where to live. Typically, they already pay a lot of tax directly to the UK exchequer, so the risk is that the entirety of this revenue is lost if they cease to be resident here.’
‘I put these points as questions not assertions because the nature of this debate is that there is much uncertainty as to the answers,’ Gauke wrote. ‘The Treasury or HMRC (or anyone else) cannot predict with much confidence what the behavioural response will be to a change of policy. The sky has not fallen in so far, some will argue, but an ill-judged reform could still provoke a fiscally and economically damaging behavioural response.’
