PTI | London
Britain’s Business and Trade Secretary Peter Kyle on Monday admitted he is worried over news that some of the country’s super-rich, including Indian-origin billionaire steel tycoon Lakshmi N Mittal, are leaving the UK as a result of the Labour government’s tax rises.
Kyle was asked by ‘Sky News’ about a media report over the weekend, which revealed that Mittal’s tax residency has shifted to Switzerland, and he plans to relocate to Dubai amid a growing tax burden in the UK.
The news came days ahead of Rachel Reeves’ second Budget as Chancellor, which is expected to impose further taxes across the board to address an estimated 20 billion pounds hole in the UK’s finances.
“I am worried whenever somebody feels they have to leave the UK in order to succeed,” responded Kyle, to a question about Mittal’s proposed exit.
“We’ve gone through a period where thousands of doctors have left the country. What I don’t want to do as a country is focus just on the billionaires, because there’s other people that have needed to leave.
“There are people starting businesses that have gone to America in their droves because they haven’t had the funding to succeed – that’s something that we’re fundamentally stopping the need for by re-capitalising the markets,” he said.
Pressed on whether the government admits that it is Labour’s taxation regime that is causing the exodus of the super-rich, he replied: “I do. I’m not going to duck the fact that we have put up taxes, and we’ve closed some of the loopholes for non-doms.
“Some people are going to leave because they are here because of how the old non-dom system worked.”
The non-dom system refers to a now closed policy that allowed overseas nationals living in Britain to register as non-domiciled in the UK for tax purposes, which prevented them being charged at a higher rate of tax in the UK.
In her first Budget last year, Reeves had scrapped this policy effective from April 2025, and it is believed that around half of the wealthy UK residents registered as non-doms have decided to leave Britain since
that announcement.
However, Kyle insisted that “there are other people who are coming to this country because of the excitement in our economy at the moment”.
‘The Sunday Times’ reported over the weekend that Rajasthan-born Mittal, founder of ArcelorMittal steelworks and the UK’s eighth richest man, worth an estimated 15.4 billion pounds as per the newspaper’s annual rich list, is among several entrepreneurs leaving the UK.
“It wasn’t the tax on income [or capital gains] that was the issue,” one adviser familiar with Mittal’s move was quoted as saying.
“The issue was inheritance tax. Many wealthy people from overseas cannot understand why all of their assets, wherever they are in the world, should be subject to inheritance tax imposed by the UK Treasury.
“People in this situation feel they have little choice but to leave and are either sad or angry to be doing so,” the adviser said.
While death duties are levied at up to 40 per cent in the UK, there is no inheritance tax in Dubai and in Switzerland.
Reports of Mittal’s relocation from the UK follow others, including India-born tech entrepreneur and investor Herman Narula. The 37-year-old, who has lived and grown up in England since the age of two, recently revealed his plans to shift to Dubai.
The UK’s Treasury department has been accused of a series of tax flip-flops in the days and weeks ahead of Wednesday’s Budget statement in Parliament, or Autumn Statement as it is known. The Opposition Conservative Party has called for an investigation into these pre-Budget leaks to the media, saying they have “real world consequences, including for financial markets”.
