Badenoch’s Budget tax warning signals years of wealth exodus

Britain’s wealthy will keep packing their bags for years to come after Kemi Badenoch’s stark Budget warning of the highest tax burden in the country’s history, warns the CEO of deVere Group, one of the world’s largest independent financial advisory organisations.

The comments from Nigel Green come as the Conservative leader tears into John Healey’s debut Budget, telling MPs Britain is overtaxed, overspent and heading for a record tax burden next year.

He says: “Kemi Badenoch is right, and the wealthy heard her loud and clear.

“People with capital and a passport have choices. When a country taxes them harder than at any point since it was paying off a world war, they use those choices.

“I expect Britain to keep losing millionaires, entrepreneurs and family fortunes for the foreseeable future. This wealth exodus has years left to run.”

The Office for Budget Responsibility’s own numbers back her up. Tax is forecast to swallow 37.9% of national income in 2027/28, smashing a record of 37.2% which has stood since 1948/49. By 2031/32, the watchdog sees it peaking at 38.6%.

Nigel Green continues: “Around 367,000 people, the top 1% of income taxpayers, cover 27.2% of Britain’s entire income tax bill while earning 12.4% of the income. They’re the most valuable taxpayers in the country and the most mobile.

“Every one of them who leaves, creates a gap someone else has to fill. Right now, the Chancellor seems to think the gap fills itself.”

The squeeze comes from every direction. Thresholds frozen until 2031 keep dragging workers into higher bands. Employers have paid 15% national insurance since April 2025. The non-dom regime is gone. From April 2027, unused pensions fall into inheritance tax.

Wednesday’s Budget piled more onto savers, landlords and banks, while the OBR slashed next year’s growth forecast to a feeble 1%.

The deVere CEO says: “Families who’ve spent decades building something are being told the state wants more while they’re alive and more again when they die.

“Growth of 1% won’t pay for a record tax take. When the people who invest and hire walk away, the base shrinks, the next tax rise follows, and more of them walk.

“Healey had a chance to break the cycle and passed it up.”

The departures show no sign of drying up.

Wealth migration analysts expect Britain to lose a net 8,600 millionaires this year, more than any other country on earth, after a forecast 16,500 in 2025.

Nearly a third of UK investors with £250,000 or more now say they’re weighing a move abroad, up from a quarter a year ago.

Nigel Green says: “Back in January, we said the number of wealthy people leaving could potentially double this year. Every conversation since has pointed the same way.

“The question families bring us now is where to go, how fast, and how to take everything with them. The UAE, Italy, Switzerland and Asia can’t believe their luck.”

Yet the deVere CEO sees a way back for Britain, if its politicians want one.

He concludes: “Britain has everything wealth looks for: world-class law, the language of global business, great time zone, great universities, and one of the deepest pools of financial talent anywhere. Capital is loyal to nobody, and it cuts both ways.

“Offer stability and a credible route to lower taxes and it’ll come flooding back. Until a government does, Britain will keep exporting the people who’d have paid for its future.”