Scrapping Non-Dom status would be disastrous for UK foreign investment

Although I am a traditional Tory voter, who believes in capitalism with a small ‘C’, I am struggling to find a positive case to vote for the Tories at the next Election.

I’m not sure the deterrent effect of persuading myself that the Labour Party will be worse, is motive enough. Maybe I’ll just abstain and be a conscientious objector?

IRRITATION

My latest irritation is the soundings that our ‘esteemed Chancellor’ Jeremy Hunt has been deliberately putting dark rumours around the corridors of Westminster.

The latest is that the grand Satan, flagship policy, born from the politics of envy of the Labour Party, is about to be confiscated by the other side and announced at the Spring Budget later today.

What a caustic amalgam of policies the Tories have been spewing out for the international residential property investors who are chewing on them like a Bull Dog eating a wasp!

STAMP DUTY

Firstly, they made sure that the Stamp Duty rate is at a suffocatingly high level then they increased Corporation Tax instead of reducing it. And while they’ve been doing this they’ve stubbornly refused to reinstate the VAT reclaim facility, which is so important to retailers in the UK, and now they are considering kicking the Non-Dom’s in the proverbial, for completeness.

Have the Tories lost their senses and are they starting to steal the Labour Party’s rhetoric as they are bereft of ideas of their own?

It is yet to be proven whether there will be any tax gain at all for the Exchequer by abolishing the Non-Dom facility.

REDUCED SPENDING

What is far more certain is the predictable loss of revenue from reduced retail spending, employment, Corporation Tax and VAT which will be the inescapable casualties which flow directly from the exodus of wealthy investors.

If you are in any doubt about the worth of these high net worth (HNW) citizens, you only have to look to the Continent and see how many socialistic countries are hurriedly creating special tax breaks for disaffected UK Non-Dom’s.

The Europeans are not stupid and if we don’t want these resourceful people and their money, they do.

DIE-HARD TORY

With overall taxation being at a post war high you have to be quite a die-hard Tory to find a good reason to warm to them.

I can’t help but think that the higher end of the residential property market will not be affected by this.

I notice with great interest there has been a spate of buying by Americans of prime central London trophy homes but they also benefit from the Non-Dom tax arrangements as presently arranged even though they pay full tax in the USA.

We would be fools to ignore the consequences of these actions.

RABBIT FROM THE HAT

I suppose that Jeremy Hunt has one last chance to pull a ‘rabbit from the hat’ but his options are few and I’m afraid the Prime Minister’s hollow rhetoric at the Tory conference last autumn when he tried to proclaim that he was the ‘champion of change’ is looking conspicuously feeble, if not fatuous.

All these machinations will not affect the residential markets below £5 million but above £10 million I think there will be a dearth of buyers from abroad as the wealthy, cognoscenti, find more palatable ‘homes’ for their money, elsewhere.

A long sigh from an exasperated Tory.

Trevor Abrahmsohn (main picture) is Chief Executive of Glentree International