It turns out that a billionaire who apparently had ‘fled’ to Monaco to avoid upcoming Labour taxes in the budget had in fact already been a tax resident in the principality for a decade.
Last weekend, the Sunday Times reported that one of Britain’s richest men, David Reuben, had quit the UK for Monaco, where there is no income tax, capital gains tax or inheritance tax.
Reuben was said to have moved out of his Holland Park house in London to live full-time in the tax haven over policiies such as the abolition of non-dom tax status, changes to capital gains and inheritance tax, and fears that taxes on wealth could be announced at the budget later this month.
The Newcastle United shareholder is estimated to have an individual net worth of £9.9bn according to Forbes. With his brother Simon, he shares a combined estimated wealth of almost £28bn through a property empire they’ve built in London.
The story fitted perfectly into one of the right’s favourite narratives that Labour’s policies are causing Britain’s super rich to flee the country, thus negatively affecting the economy.
But it turns out that any such fears are completely irrelevant in this case, because Reuben actually left the UK years ago.
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Research from TaxWatch found that the 88-year-old has been residing in Monaco since at least 2014, when David Cameron was prime minister.
This has been confirmed by a spokesperson for Reuben, the Guardian reports.
In July 2019, David became a director of the Reuben foundation. Paperwork filed at the UK company registry at the time started he was “usually resident” in Monaco.
Then, in 2024 he provided a signed declaration to a Los Angeles court stating: “I reside in Monaco. I have resided there for approximately 10 years.”
The Reuben brothers reportedly had ‘non-dom’ tax status, meaning they did not have to pay UK tax on income earned outside the UK.
Rachel Reeves scrapped the non-dom system when she became chancellor, sparking fears this would lead to a mass wealth exodus from the UK. Research last year found this did not end up being the case.
A spokesperson for Reuben told the Guardian it is an “entirely hypothetical question to which it would be impossible to give an answer” when asked if he would have been affected by changes to the non-dom rules if he had remained in his UK residence.
Whilst there is evidence that some of the super-rich are deciding to leave the UK because the government has the temerity to try and tax a little bit more of their billions, it’s safe to say that Reuben is not an example of this.