Leading wealth managers slam the prospect of an exit tax

Sunday 09 November 2025 11:40
| Updated:

Sunday 09 November 2025 11:41

Share

• 
  Share on Facebook
• 
  Share on Twitter
• 
  Share on LinkedIn
• 
  Share on WhatsApp
• 
  Share on Email

The head of a leading financial advisory and wealth management firm has slammed plans to impose an exit tax on wealthy Britons fleeing the UK, arguing it would cause long-term damage to the country.

Reeves is reportedly considering the possibility of a 20 per cent “settlement charge” on business assets, which is the Capital Gains Tax (CGT) rate.

It is estimated the policy will raise around £2 billion, and the Chancellor faces a fiscal black hole of up to £35 billion to fill in the November 26 Budget.

But Nigel Green, CEO of financial advisory and asset management firm DeVere Group, has warned that the tax would be “reckless and self-defeating”.

Green said the proposal would do long-term damage to the country’s competitiveness at a critical time.

“The government seems determined to make the UK an increasingly unattractive place for wealth creators.

“Implementing an exit tax will accelerate the exodus of entrepreneurs, business owners and investors who already feel punished for their success,” he said.

Exit tax would ‘destroy trust’

Green argued that an exit tax would fail to raise meaningful revenue and cost the Treasury “much more” in lost economic activity than could be recouped through short-term taxation.

“Investors and business leaders are already looking at the UK with increasing caution,” Green said.

“They are directing capital to economies that reward ambition and provide stability. Britain should seek to attract international wealth, not signal that it intends to punish it.”

He added that DeVere had seen a significant increase in the number of domestic and global investors rethinking their exposure to the UK due to the perception that the Government was unfriendly to private capital.

A wave of company directors has left Britain since the government announced a series of tax increases on the rich in its maiden budget last autumn.

According to analysis of Companies House data, 3,790 company directors removed the UK as their country of legal residence between last October and last month, a sharp increase from 2,712 directors in the same period a year earlier.

Former boss of London-listed consumer giant Reckitt Benckiser, Bart Becht, FTSE Russell founder Mark Makepeace and AC Milan and Miami Football Club stalwart Riccardo Silva are all understood to have left the UK since the Budget.

“The removal of the non-dom regime, increases in corporation tax and the highest personal tax burden in decades have all eroded confidence. The exit tax would be the final signal that the UK is no longer open to wealth, investment or aspiration,” Green said.

“The Chancellor should seek to attract entrepreneurs and innovators, not create new barriers. A prosperous economy is built on encouraging growth, not limiting ambition. Forcing costs to exit is economic setbacks.”

AM City has contacted the Department of Finance for comment.