The Millionaire ‘Exodus’ Myth? Busted.
A new report has confirmed what many of us already knew: the narrative of wealthy people fleeing “high-tax” countries is simply not supported by evidence.
PLEASE RE-STACK!
At the end of this Summary is a link to a more detailed version. It takes little more than 5 minutes to read.
The report is by the Tax Justice Network, in collaboration with Patriotic Millionaires UK and Tax Justice UK. It dismantles the shaky methodology behind widely-circulated claims about higher taxes driving the wealthy away. The key points in the report are:
The total number of millionaires reported on the Henley & Partners website to have migrated each year from 2013 to 2023 consistently represented around 0.2% of the global millionaire population annually.
The use of the term “exodus” has been inconsistent in Henley & Partners’ own analysis. In 2021, H&P described 2,000 millionaires leaving the UK as “insignificant,” yet in 2023 referred to 1,600 millionaires leaving the UK as an “exodus.”
The report finds that ensuing media coverage of the Henley & Partners figures - especially in UK outlets - has gone well beyond the claims made in the reports themselves. This has contributed to an entirely unfounded narrative suggesting that tax and government policy have driven a millionaire ‘exodus’ that, in reality, did not occur.
Seven high-profile millionaires - Charlie Mullins, Christian Angermayer, Alan Howard, Nassef Sawiris, Asif Aziz, and Bassim Haidar - were mentioned in 199 media articles about their reported departures from the UK. In contrast, pro-tax groups representing 300+ multi-millionaires (including us!) were mentioned only 73 times. This means that migrating millionaires received 2.7 times more media coverage than those advocating for higher taxes on the wealthy.
https://taxjustice.net/press/millionaire-exodus-did-not-occur-study-reveals