Labour tax fears prompt rich Britons to flee to Florida
WEALTHY Britons are relocating to Florida because they fear an incoming Labour government may push up taxes to eye-watering levels.
The Sunshine State, which has no state income tax, inheritance tax or capital gains tax, has become the latest refuge of the super-rich seeking to protect their assets and cash reserves.
The state has one of the largest populations of British expats in the US. They are attracted its warm climate and quality services as well as low taxes.
But it has experienced a slowdown in middle class immigration from the UK since the Covid pandemic. However, David Lesperance, a leading international tax and migration adviser, said Britons concerned about Labour wealth taxes were again looking to relocate to the southern state.
Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, has announced she would abolish non-dom status in the UK but has ruled out increases in the top rate of income tax, capital gains tax or the introduction of property taxes. But Mr Lesperance his high net worth clients did not believe her and some had left Britain because they thought taxes would rise almost immediately if Labour won next year’s general election.
“British people domiciled in the UK, can see that Labour is probably not going to get the money out of the nondoms to pay for the NHS and all the other things they want to spend it on,” he said. “So they’re going to have to come to the rich Brits, which means that all of a sudden that wealth tax is going to look pretty good to the new PM and chancellor.”
Among the emigration options for rich Britons are Monaco, which has no income tax and levies inheritance tax only on assets in the country, and the Cayman Islands, which does not tax foreigners at all.
Florida has become one of the most popular US states for rich emigrants. In the first quarter of this year, 10,000 New Yorkers moved to Florida, while 50,000 moved there from California in 2022.
Mr Lesperance said British expats were following the lead of wealthy Americans such as Jeff Bezos. “They’re not going to move to Washington State or New York. They’re moving to Florida or Texas which have no state tax.”
This week Mr Bezos, the Amazon founder worth £132billion, announced he was relocating to “Billionaires’ Bunker” in Indian Creek, off the coast of Miami where an influx of wealthy residents has caused the price of expensive properties to soar.
Ryan Skrzypkowsk, a Mansfield-born estate agent working in Sarasota, Florida, said wealthy Britons were attracted by financial and lifestyle benefits.
High net worth individuals move to the state as it has low taxes, quality public services and warm climate
‘They are going to have to come for the rich Brits. A wealth tax is going to look pretty good to the new PM’
“From a tax standpoint, not just coming here from the UK, but from the US in general, this is just a fantastic state to be in,” he said.
In Palm Beach, a prestigious neighbourhood north of Miami, sales of properties worth more than $1million have risen by 30.8 per cent in the last year. Last month, almost half of buyers in the area paid for their houses in cash.
David Beckham, a co-owner of Inter Miami football club, has a £17million penthouse in downtown Miami.
Although the number of super-rich immigrants is on the rise, there has been a decline in the number of middle-class Britons living in the state, as property prices rose after the pandemic. Many who bought properties to rent out have sold them to move back to the UK and some 20 British pubs in the Miami area have closed in the past five years. Higher-class British restaurants have sprung up there, however. Gordon Ramsay opened a Hell’s Kitchen outlet last month and Richard Caring, who owns London’s Sexy Fish, opened a new branch in the port city last year.