Steel mogul Lakshmi Mittal leaves UK for Switzerland and Dubai
Lakshmi Mittal, the steel mogul who was one of Britain’s richest people, has now left the country and become a resident in Switzerland for tax purposes, it has been reported.
Mittal has long been one of the billionaires rumoured to be leaving the UK in response to Rachel Reeves’ tax plans.
In March this year, it was reported that Mittal had told his associates that he was planning to quit as a result of the decision to end the non-dom regime, which allowed some people to avoid paying tax on foreign income and assets.
Mittal is now a resident in Switzerland for tax reasons and will spend much of his time in Dubai, according to The Sunday Times.
The newspaper’s rich list valued the ArcelorMittal founder at £15.4bn. Sources told The Sunday Times that Mittal was leaving due to the requirement for former non-doms to pay inheritance tax on overseas assets.
His confirmed departure comes days before Reeves’ Budget is set to order a new wave of taxes to hit those with the “heaviest shoulders”.
Mittal follows long line of billionaire leavers
In the lead-up to the Budget, Reeves has faced widespread calls from colleagues on the left of the Labour Party to introduce a wealth tax.
She pointed to the ending of the non-dom regime, the closures of reliefs for family businesses and farmers, and hikes to capital gains taxes as examples of how she had already taxed the rich.
Mittal would be one of the most high-profile individuals to leave the country in response to Labour measures.
Other billionaires to have left include Aston Villa owner Nassef Sawiris, Goldman Sachs banker Richard Gnodde and Nikolay Storonsky, the multibillionaire founder of Revolut.
Norwegian-born shipping tycoon John Fredriksen also left and said the country had “gone to hell”.
A number of lobby groups, including a think tank for entrepreneurs, have written to the Chancellor to look to attract more wealth creators to the UK from abroad.
The upcoming Budget is expected to include further measures to hit the wealthiest, including a “mansion tax” that would impose a higher levy on homes that fall under the highest bands for council taxes.
Properties above a certain threshold, expected to be around £2m, could face an annual levy in addition to an existing council tax bill, according to reports.
Helen Miller, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), has criticised the plans.
“It has the air of trying to scrape a bit more money where you need it, as opposed to just grasping the nettle,” she said.
“Once you’ve done that much revaluation, couldn’t you just revalue the whole stock, and then actually update council tax? If not now, when? How many more decades do we have to be saying we’re basing council tax on 1991 valuations?”