In an extension to the controversial non-dom tax domicile scheme, Nigel Farage proposes that rich foreigners would pay a fee of £250,000 for the right to residency in the UK. While they may have to pay some UK taxes, they would not pay any tax on earnings on income and investments from overseas, nor would they be subject to UK inheritance tax. Reform says it would use the money raised in fees to reduce tax paid by the 10% of lowest-income people in Britain. Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves has dismissed the idea as “a tax cut for billionaires“.
According to the advisory firm RSM, there were 83,800 individuals living in the UK with non-dom status in the tax year 2022–2023. Non-dom means that very wealthy people who have a legal domicile in a country other than the UK can live here permanently while paying tax only on money made in the UK. Like the entire canon of British tax law, the deal for non-doms is very complex. Luckily, non-doms can afford the high fees charged by the expert firms in the business of advising the very wealthy on minimising their tax bills.
Non-dom residents are almost exclusively a London breed who live in Kensington, Chelsea, Knightsbridge and St John’s Wood. Clothes are bought on Savile Row and Bond Street, cars in Berkley Square and art in the private galleries of Mayfair. Days out are at Ascot, Wimbledon and the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. The corner shop is Harrods or Fortum & Mason. Weekends are filled with country house pastimes in the Cotswolds, East Sussex and rural Oxfordshire. Armies of housekeepers, nannies, butlers, drivers, gardeners and wealth managers are on hand to ease the paths of the super-privileged non-doms.
Rich foreigners welcome
The point is that the UK government likes having rich foreigners living here. They buy a lot of services from London lawyers, accountants, wealth managers and private health care providers. They buy assets like big homes, flashy cars, racehorses and country estates, and they eat in high-end restaurants. They generate a lot of dosh. For doing that, they get favourable treatment from the British tax authorities. That usually includes not paying any tax at all on money earned outside the UK, even when it ends up in Britain.
But hold hard. All is not as it was in non-dom world. The Labour government has said it is abolishing non-dom status. However, there are rumours that Labour is rethinking its position and may soften its abolitionist stance considerably. The Financial Times reported on 3 June that 10% of non-doms have already quit the UK, with more forecast to follow. The key study the government is said to have relied on when developing its original policy asserted that less than 1% would leave, leaving 99% to be taxed like any other UK taxpayer, thus raising £3.2bn a year in new tax income. If the non-doms are fleeing the UK in significant numbers for more tax-conducive domiciles, the UK is in danger of shooting itself in the foot, and Farage may have lit on a policy of some efficacy.
Farage‘s bargain basement UK
Nigel Farage is following in the footsteps of his pal Donald Trump. Not long after entering the White House for the second time, Trump announced a golden visa scheme. For a one-off fee of US$5mn, applicants would get the right to reside in the US. On 16 June, the Financial Times reported that 70,000 people have already registered interest, though details of the policy have yet to be announced.
Using the tax system to attract the wealthy is not unique to the UK. They vary in detail, though often include the right to residency and that can include members of extended families. The big draw is not paying tax on money earned elsewhere, and usually unrestricted right of travel in and out of the host country.
For many of the very rich who come from unstable countries or whose fortunes may not be derived from wholly honest endeavour, getting a billet in a well-ordered, essentially non-violent and peaceful country like the UK (and in a global city like London) is a prize almost beyond value. That‘s got to be worth more than £250,000, which is the price of a two-bedroom flat in pleasant if not fashionable parts of Glasgow. It‘s less than the purchase price of a parking place in Mayfair.
Farage is selling the UK at a bargain basement price.
Canada‘s business builder golden visa
A few EU member states offer golden visas, including Hungary, Italy, Malta, Portugal and Spain. Some, though not all, come with the requirement to buy property. None of these countries is perceived to be as politically stable as Britain. The UK is the most desirable country for the footloose mega-rich.
Canada‘s golden visa programme aims to attract people to set up businesses in the country. In return for the security of permanent residence, applicants must show they have the money not to be a burden on the state and money to start a business. In Quebec, applicants must have a minimum net worth of CA$2mn (about £1.067mn as of 26 June 2025) and invest a significant amount of cash for five years in a Quebec provincial government fund. That money is guaranteed by the Canadian government and returned after five years.
Canada‘s approach is clear and sensible and does not include tax holidays or tax breaks. Once an applicant is a resident, they are subject to the same tax laws as all Canadians. You can read about the Quebec approach here.
The Reform plans say nothing about starting or investing in businesses in the UK. There‘s no mention of any skills or business experience qualifications. It looks like unfettered immigration for wealthy people. They won‘t need to hire people smugglers to bring them across the Channel on small boats. They‘ll be allowed to sail their luxury yachts straight up the Thames. “Welcome to Britain” signs will be held up by City types keen to help make themselves and the rich richer, and show them how to minimise paying tax in the UK. The Ritz, The Savoy and The Dorchester will be known as migrant hotels.
Institutionalised inequality favouring the wealthiest
Stand back a moment and consider all this fuss over the very rich, and we find we have institutionalised inequality. We actively favour that section of global society to whom a huge percentage of the world‘s wealth has accrued, while the have-nots wait in the rain outside foodbanks, the young despair of affording to rent a home, never mind owning one, and entire towns and cities across the world live in a vortex of post-industrial decline. And we can be sure that right now that the world of AI is forging a new industrial revolution that will create a new cadre of the super wealthy and fresh ranks of the newly poor.
Lest I‘m accused of some kind of closet communism – the newest tactic of the US Right is to accuse any critics of being communists – let me say that I‘m quite a fan of capitalism. I believe it has great capacity to make human lives better. Nor does it bother me very much that people who build successful businesses can win substantial financial rewards (providing they pay their taxes). But capitalism has been allowed to become society‘s master when it should be its servant. Too much of the world‘s wealth and resources have accrued to too few.
With the warehousing of vast wealth by a small number of people across the planet has come the creeping transfer of power from voters, parliaments and governments to the think tanks, media empires and political donations and leverage of the very rich. And the interests of the very rich are the same as those of the non-doms that Labour fears may desert the UK, and whom Nigel Farage wants to ensure will come. Once here, they will want to protect the system that favours them. How might that be done? By funding think tanks, political donations and media ownership.
Isn‘t it time we rebalanced our tax system so that the rich are compelled to pay their fair share, rather than the current system in the UK that sees the least well-off pay a higher percentage of their earnings to the Exchequer than the wealthiest? Isn‘t it time we took back power from the think tanks and media moguls and chased out from the temple the lobbyists and smooth-tongued think tank courtiers who whisper in the ears of our elected representatives?
European social democracy has lost its intellectual way. In many cases, it has also lost its soul. It was a post-WW2 approach to politics from which emerged a more balanced society, where capital and labour divided the cake of common endeavour more fairly and the state played a central role in providing services that made most Europeans healthier, better educated and more affluent than at any time in history, with the chief prize of political stability and fair justice.
All those gains are in grave danger of being allowed to slip away. Now is not the time to give comfort to the already comfortable. Now is the time to pull the scales back closer to being in balance. The primary prize is peace, political stability, fair and open justice, fundamental human rights to life, to speech, to assembly, to the protection of minorities, and the freedom for capitalism to flourish for the benefit of the many, not just the few.
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