HMRC data debunks UK non-dom exodus claims, FT reports

New data from the UK’s HM Revenue & Customs shows that the number of non-doms leaving the UK is in line with or below official forecasts, dispelling claims that recent revenue-boosting tax reforms have triggered a massive non-dom exodus, says the Financial Times.¹

The findings are the latest in a series of reports debunking a widely popular media narrative about a large exodus of millionaires – often conflated with non-doms (people living in the UK with non-domiciled status) – leaving the UK in response to tax policies.

So far this year:

• A Tax Justice Network report² published in early June debunked the Henley & Partner’s report behind the millionaire exodus claims, finding several issues ranging from how the report calculates its findings to how it presents its findings.
• The Tax Justice Network report also tracked the wide media coverage of the report – consisting of about 11,000 news pieces in 2024 alone, or 30 pieces a day – showing how media reporting often went even further than the claims made in the Henley report, exacerbating an unfounded narrative.
• Henley & Partners wrote³ to the Tax Justice Network blaming UK news outlets for deliberately misrepresenting their numbers:
  “We have never claimed that Labour tax policies were the sole or root cause.  If papers such as the Telegraph, Times, Mail, decide to add their own layer on to that, and deliberately exclude from their story our standard reminder to them that these were the Conservatives’ tax changes, then I think your argument is with them not with us.”
• Following the release of the Tax Justice Network’s report, Henley & Partners backtracked on their usage of the term “exodus” in late June.⁴
• A study published in the FT⁵ in July found that Henley & Partner’s report failed several standard forensic accounting techniques used to detect suspicious patterns in datasets that indicate manually entered or adjusted numbers. The study concluded that the Henley report’s numbers are highly likely to be “fabricated”.
• Green New Deal Rising, a movement of young people fighting for climate justice, held a public stunt yesterday⁶ (13 August 2025) at Henley & Partners London headquarters to call out false media reporting of a millionaire exodus and demand taxes on the superrich.
• A Patriotic Millionaires UK poll⁷ found that 80% of UK millionaires support a wealth tax.

Mark Bou Mansour, head of communications at the Tax Justice Network, said:

“Every other week now there’s more evidence confirming the Tax Justice Network’s thorough debunking of these scare stories and showing just how far opponents of wealth taxes are willing to go. Governments should take heed, and wise up.”

“78% of Britons and 80% of UK millionaires support a wealth tax but UK media and the UK government have been completely captured by a fabrication of lobbyists. The UK must make sure its tax policy represents the will of its people, not the yarn of lobbyists, and begin again to tax extreme wealth.”

“It takes two to tango with public misinformation, and the newsrooms that published over 14,000 news pieces over the past year fanning these scare stories should be today questioning their enthusiasm to ignore the warnings and fuel the fire.”

“There will always be people willing to make data-denying claims to journalists about how very dangerous it would be to tax the extremely wealthy a bit more fairly, while ignoring evidence on the economic harms of extreme wealth. If journalists and editors don’t want to become propagandists for extreme inequality, they should treat these statements with the caution they deserve.”

Academic studies consistently show that the tax responses of the wealthy involve minimal levels of migration.⁸ The vast majority (78%) of the UK public support a wealth tax⁹ and so do 80% of UK millionaires¹⁰.

The notion that governments should be worried about superrich individuals migrating away is based on popular misconceptions on how wealth is created and ignores wide evidence on the harmful impact of extreme wealth on economies and societies.

The rise of extreme wealth is directly linked to lower economic productivity¹¹, more households going into debt¹² and to people living shorter lives¹³.

-ENDS-

Notes to Editor

1. Read the Financial Times article here.
2. Read the Tax Justice Network’s report The millionaire exodus myth.
3. Ibid.
4. Read more about Henley’s backtracking on their choice of framing here.
5. Read more about the forensic analysis in the Financial Times here.
6. See the Green New Deal Rising’s public stunt here.
7. See Patriotic Millionaire UK’s polling here.
8. See the literature on migration surveyed in our report, Taxing extreme wealth: what countries around the world could gain from progressive wealth taxes (Alison Schulz & Miroslav Palanský), 2024, Tax Justice Network. Meanwhile, a London School of Economics study found that the vast majority of Britain’s extremely wealthy people would never leave the country for tax reasons, partly due to the stigma involved in doing so, and partly because they think lower-tax jurisdictions are “boring”.
9. See Oxfam’s polling here.
10. See note 6.
11. Research shows large rise in wealth among the 1% in the US over the past 40 years did not lead to more investments, and instead resulted in dissaving among non-rich households. Research also shows that “a large rise in inequality generates a saving glut of the rich, which can push an economy into a debt trap characterized by low interest rates, high debt levels, and output below potential”. Indebtedness of non-wealthy households brought on by extreme wealth of the richest households brings about lower productivity. Conversely, another study found that wealth taxes resulted in more investments.
12. Research shows large rise in savings among the 1% in the US over the past 40 years brought on dissaving among non-rich households.
13. Wealth inequality has been shown to be sufficiently extreme that progressive wealth redistribution could add 2.2 years to the US population’s life expectancy as a whole.