Oh dear, once again Farage’s policies don’t stack up.
It took him a while to come up with a concrete policy idea. Nigel Farage has unveiled his plan for tax cuts for the wealthy, to restore non-dom tax breaks for the super-rich, in exchange for a ‘Britannia card’ worth £250,000 each, as part of a special tax regime. There’s one problem though. His plans have fallen apart at the slightest bit of scrutiny.
Farage likes to portray himself as a ‘man of the people’, and yet his priority is to help the super-rich. He has unveiled plans to give a “Britannia Card” to wealthy foreigners who move to Britain in exchange for the one-off fee.
In return, they would enjoy so-called “non-dom” status, which allows them to avoid paying tax in the UK on their overseas earnings – a policy which was scrapped by Labour.
Farage and Reform say that the funds raised through charging the super-rich £250,000 each for the Britannia card would then be redistributed to around 2.5 million workers on low incomes.
However, as is usually case with populist slogans and stunts, a bit of scrutiny and it all falls apart.
Tax expert Dan Neidle says that that plans would cost the UK £34bn, a glaring omission from Reform’s statistics today.
The Office for Budget Responsibility estimates that scrapping non-dom tax status would raise around £33.9bn, revenue that would immediately be lost under Reform’s proposals.
Neidle wrote on X: “The £33.9bn reflects tax raised from a small number of very wealthy people who would opt to buy a Britannia card and so pay no tax – it’s therefore revenue immediately lost by Reform UK’s proposal.
“It’s worse than that – Reform UK are providing a much more generous regime for the very wealthy than was in place before March 2024. There would be additional costs from deterring ‘normal’ expats from coming here.
“We therefore believe it’s fair to say that Reform UK’s proposal will cost around £34bn if it was enacted before 2026/27. That sum would therefore likely have to be funded by some combination of spending cuts and tax rises.”
Neidle also highlighted on a separate blog that Reform’s proposals would discourage highly skilled professionals from moving to the UK if they couldn’t afford the £250,000. He wrote: “For the first time in the UK’s history, an ex-pat arriving here would be immediately subject to full UK tax (and likely also tax in their home country). That’s a big tax increase: the Reform UK proposal would make the UK uncompetitive.”
Oh dear, once again Farage’s policies don’t stack up.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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