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Reeves to water down tax raid on non-doms after exodus of millionaires
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Rachel Reeves is watering down her tax raid on non-doms after it contributed to an exodus of millionaires from the UK.
The chancellor is to amend some of the changes to tax rules for non-domiciled individuals announced in October’s Budget.
Speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Ms Reeves said the government will table an amendment to the finance bill to address some of the concerns raised by non-doms.
She told Wall Street Journal editor Emma Tucker: “We have been listening to the concerns that have been raised by the non-dom community.”
One planned change will be to expand the temporary repatriation facility, which lets non-doms bring income and capital gains into the UK with a minimal tax bill.
And the chancellor offered reassurance to non-doms worried about becoming liable for double taxation, adding: “There’s been some concerns from countries that have double taxation conventions with the UK, including India, that they would be drawn into paying inheritance tax.
“That’s not the case: we are not going to be changing those double-taxation conventions.”
A Treasury source told The Times: “We’re always interested in hearing ideas for making our tax regime more attractive to talented entrepreneurs and business leaders from around the world to help create jobs and wealth in the UK.”
The non-dom tax loophole, which lets foreign nationals living in Britain avoid paying tax on overseas earnings, was thrust into the spotlight when The Independent first revealed that Akshata Murty, Rishi Sunak’s wife, had used it to save potentially millions of pounds.
Ms Murty, whose family business is estimated to be worth around £60bn, later said she would no longer claim the status on her worldwide earnings. At the time, she said she did not want her tax status to be a “distraction for my husband or to affect my family”.
Since Labour came to power in July, the UK has lost a millionaire every 45 minutes, with the exodus driven by Labour’s tax grabs and a lack of business confidence.
Britain lost a net 10,800 millionaires last year, a 157 per cent increase on 2023, including 78 centi-millionaires (worth at least £100 million) and 12 billionaires. They left for other countries mainly in Europe, such as Italy and Switzerland, as well as the United Arab Emirates.
The figures, compiled by the analytics firm New World Wealth, show the exodus sped up after the general election was called and that since then a ‘dollar millionaire’ has left Britain every 45 minutes.
Tax planners have repeatedly warned of an exodus of Britain’s super wealthy, with many blaming the impact of Ms Reeves’ first Budget in October.
Adam Smith Institute (ASI) research showed that each of the millionaires who left Britain last year would have paid at least £393,957 in income tax per year.
The free market think tank said one millionaire’s tax payment is equivalent to that of 49 average taxpayers, meaning the millionaire exodus is comparable to 529,200 average taxpayers leaving the country.
The Treasury has been asked to comment.
Customers of the mobile network, Three, have told the BBC they cannot make 999 calls, as the network faces a significant outage.
The firm has apologised after more than ten thousand people told outage tracker Downdetector they were unable to make or receive phone calls on Thursday.
The BBC has been told by members of the public that 999 calls will not connect from their devices using the Three network. The BBC has not been able to independently verify their claims.
Three told the BBC it was “investigating this urgently”, adding that data from emergency services showed the “majority” of 999 calls were being “connected via other networks”.
There have also been several thousand reports from users of Smarty and ID Mobile – smaller mobile companies which use Three’s network.
Three’s support team has been telling customers that it does not “have a timeframe” for a fix, but that the firm is “working hard to resolve this as soon as possible”.
In a statement to the BBC, a Three spokesperson said the company is “aware of a number of reports that customers have not been able to connect to 999 calls”.
“We are taking this very seriously and are investigating this urgently and we apologise if anyone has been unable to successfully contact emergency services.
“Call data from the emergency services shows that the majority of 999 calls being placed via our network are being connected via other networks,” the spokesperson added.
In an earlier statement, Three had said that people were still able to use mobile data services and make 999 calls during the outage, though multiple people had told the BBC that was not the case for them.
Three has around 10.5m customers across the UK, according to its website, but it is unclear how many of them are affected by the outages.
Many people on social media have shared their frustration at the outage and described the disruption they said it had caused them.
One person claimed they had “missed a medical appointment” as a result of being unable to receive calls, while another said the issues had left their daughter “stranded”.
And several people have claimed they would be leaving the network altogether.
In a statement the regulator Ofcom said: “We are aware that Three is experiencing problems with its network. We are in contact with Three to establish the scale and cause of the problem as soon as possible.”
It is not known whether customers will be able to claim compensation for the outage, although according to the Ofcom website it “may be appropriate” for providers to offer refunds “while repairs are being made”.
It comes a month after the UK regulator gave the go-ahead for Three to merge with former rival Vodafone in a £16.5bn deal.
It comes the same day a major outage affected artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT.
Former chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng has accused authorities of suppressing crucial information about the Southport dance class killer, claiming they presented him as “a Welsh choir boy” to the public.
Speaking on GB News, Kwarteng said officials “clearly knew things about the killer which they suppressed” in the aftermath of the attacks.
“At the time of the murder, they essentially were presenting the killer as a Welsh choir boy,” he said.
The former chancellor suggested there was a deliberate withholding of information about Axel Rudakubana’s background and potential motivations.
GB News / CPS
“Either they suppressed it for whatever reason, and we need to get to the bottom of it, or it was a cover up because they felt that in that very patronising way, they felt that people couldn’t handle that information,” Kwarteng said.
Rudakubana, 18, pleaded guilty earlier this week to murdering three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport last July.
He is due to be sentenced today at Liverpool Crown Court – while his crimes could warrant a whole life order, this cannot be applied as he was 17 at the time of the offences.
Kwarteng claimed Merseyside Police were instructed by “people on high” not to release information they had about the case.
Axel Rudakubana will be sentenced in court today for the Southport attack
CPS/PA
“What was so crazy about that was that it actually stoked the very thing that they wanted to avoid because people were kept in the dark,” he said.
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The former chancellor pointed to what he called an “obvious double standard” in how the case was handled.
“Picture a situation where the terrorist, the killer, had been a white teenager who had been found with white supremacist literature, who then went out and killed three girls of ethnic origin,” he said.
“There wouldn’t be this debate. They would have denounced it,” Kwarteng added. He also criticised how Rudakubana had “slipped through the net” despite being repeatedly referred to Prevent.
Starmer has defended his position on withholding information about the Southport killer. The Prime Minister insisted he was following “the law of the land” to prevent the case against Rudakubana from collapsing.
Kwarteng questioned how the 18-year-old ‘slipped through the net’ after being referred to Prevent three times
GB News
“You know and I know that it would not have been right to disclose those details,” Starmer told reporters. “The only losers if the details had been disclosed would be the victims and the families because it ran the risk the trial would collapse.”
Rudakubana faces a life sentence, with a minimum term to be set by the judge before he can be considered for release. Chief Constable Serena Kennedy said investigations revealed “a man with a unhealthy obsession with extreme violence” but noted that “no one ideology was uncovered.”
Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor Ursula Doyle described it as “an unspeakable attack” that turned what should have been a day of “carefree innocence” into “a scene of the darkest horror.”
“It is clear that this was a young man with a sickening and sustained interest in death and violence,” she added.
A survivor of the 7 October Hamas attack has been chosen to represent Israel at Eurovision.
Yuval Raphael was at the Nova music festival when Hamas led a cross-border attack from Gaza into southern Israel.
Hundreds were killed and many were taken hostage at the event.
The amateur singer was there with friends and later told Israel’s parliament she hid under dead bodies for eight hours.
Yuval Raphael. Pic: Eurovision/Tal Givoni
She added: “I’m going to deal with this thing for the rest of my life.”
The 24-year-old earned her place at Eurovision, taking place in Switzerland in May, after coming first in the Rising Star singing contest on Israeli TV.
She won with a performance of ABBA’s Dancing Queen which she dedicated to victims of the attack which kick-started the war between Israel and Hamas.
After winning, she said: “I can’t explain how excited and ready I am.
“Thank you for giving me this huge honour and trusting me to represent my country on the grand Eurovision stage in Switzerland.”
In the months since the 2023 attack, which killed over 1,200 people, Israel has killed over 45,000 people in Gaza, according to the health ministry which doesn’t distinguish between fighters and civilians.
Around 90% of the enclave’s population of 2.3 million people are said to have been displaced.
A ceasefire was recently agreed for the conflict in Gaza, and will see the return of hostages and prisoners.
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Last year’s Eurovision was overshadowed by the war in Gaza, with large demonstrations protesting against Israel’s participation, and the country’s representative was kept under tight security throughout.
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Southport killer Axel Rudakubana been jailed for a minimum of 52 years after pleading guilty to murdering three young girls in a frenzied knife attack last year.
Rudakubana, 18, stabbed and killed the girls aged between six and nine with a 20cm-long kitchen knife as he ambushed a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, Merseyside.
Wearing a green hoodie, a surgical face mask and armed with the blade, the then 17-year-old travelled five miles from his family home to the studio where he unleashed his murderous rampage.
Sir Keir Starmer vowed the attack would be a “line in the sand” for Britain while announcing a public inquiry into the atrocity after the killer admitted to 16 offences.
However, despite the lengthy sentence Rudakubana was not given a whole life order. The Independent takes a look at what one is below, and why the killer has avoided one.
What is a whole life order?
An offender can be sentenced to a whole life order – or “whole life tariff” – for the most serious cases of murder, meaning their crime was so serious they will never be released from prison.
There were 65 prisoners serving whole life orders in the UK as of 30 June 2023, according to the Ministry of Justice.
Killers Rosemary West, Levi Bellfield, Michael Adebolajo, Wayne Couzens and Lucy Letby were among those serving this type of sentence.
How is it different to a life sentence?
Any offender found guilty of murder must be given a life sentence. However, a judge must decide whether to set a minimum term which must be served in full before release on licence, or impose a whole life order.
A murderer will serve a life sentence with a minimum term for the rest of their life, but does not necessarily spend this entire time in prison.
They would usually serve a term in prison, and then be released on licence subject to certain conditions. For example, the minimum term for murder with a knife is 25 years, then the offender would be released on licence. If they broke the conditions of this licence at any point, they could be sent back to prison.
Why has Rudakubana avoided a whole life order?
A judge cannot impose a whole life order on anyone who was under the age of 18 at the time of the offence, irrespective of the seriousness of that offence.
Despite being aged 18 at the time of his conviction, Rudakubana was 17 when he murdered Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine.
The Trump administration emailed thousands of federal employees on Wednesday, ordering them to report any efforts to “disguise” diversity initiatives in their agencies or face “adverse consequences”.
The request came after President Donald Trump banned diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) offices and programmes throughout the government.
Emails seen by the BBC directed workers to “report all facts and circumstances” to a new government email address within 10 days.
Some employees interpreted it as a demand to sell out their colleagues to the White House.
“We’re really freaked out and overwhelmed,” said one employee at the Department Health and Human Services (HHS).
The Office of Personnel Management, which manages the federal workforce, issued guidance requiring agency heads to send a notice to their staff by 17:00 eastern time on Wednesday. It included an email template that many federal staffers ultimately received that night.
Some employees, like those at the Treasury Department, got slightly different versions of the email.
The Treasury Department email excluded the warning about “adverse consequences” for not reporting DEI initiatives, according to a copy shared with the BBC.
In one of his first actions as president, Trump signed two executive orders ending “diversity, equity, and inclusion” or “DEI” programmes within the federal government and announced any employees working in those roles would immediately be placed on paid administrative leave.
Such programmes are designed to increase minority participation in the workforce and educate employees about discrimination.
But critics of DEI, like Trump, argue that the practice itself is discriminatory because it takes race, gender, sexual identity or other characteristics into consideration.
Trump and his allies attacked the practice frequently during the campaign.
In a speech Thursday at the World Economic Conference in Davos, Switzerland, Trump declared he was making America a “merit-based country”.
Critics of DEI have praised Trump’s decision.
“President Trump’s executive orders rescinding affirmative action and banning DEI programs are a major milestone in American civil rights progress and a critical step towards building a colour-blind society,” Yukong Mike Zhao, president of the Asian American Coalition for Education, said in a statement.
The group had supported a successful effort at the US Supreme Court to overturn affirmative action programmes at US universities.
But current federal employees, who spoke to the BBC on condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation, said that the email they received felt more like an attempt to intimidate staff than to make the government more fair.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
President Trump has signed a torrent of executive orders since he took office, including a hiring freeze in the federal government, an order for workers to return to the office and an attempt to reclassify thousands of government employees in order to make them easier to fire.
The HHS employee who spoke to the BBC criticised the government’s DEI practices, believing that while it was important to build a diverse staff and create opportunities in health and medical fields, “identity politics have played into how we function normally and that’s not beneficial to the workforce”.
“But that doesn’t mean I want my colleagues to get fired,” the employee added.
He described the the impact the email and the DEI orders had on his agency as “very calculated chaos”.
The employee’s division had been thrown into confusion, he said, with questions about hiring practices going forward, as well as what programmes and directives were allowed to continue, given Trump’s broad definition of DEI.
A second HHS employee said that hiring and research grants had been frozen and the entire department staff was waiting to see what they could do next.
The HHS, and one of its subsidiary agencies, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), issue millions of dollars in federal grants to universities and researchers across the globe to advance scientific research.
Agency employees feared that the DEI order could have an impact outside the government as well. One questioned if grants that allowed laboratories to create more opportunities for hiring minority scientists and medical professionals would now get the axe.
An employee who worked at the Food and Drug Administration told the BBC that she had not received the email, but all DEI-related activities had been paused.
“We have been told by seniors to keep doing our jobs,” she said. “But there is a sense of fear about how it’s going to have an impact on our work in general.”
Keir Starmer has been accused of “pathetic bullying” by a Norfolk environmental campaigner who was singled out and ridiculed by the prime minister in an article in the Daily Mail.
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‘We have to kick start the economy!’ MP defends building plans as Labour accused of ‘ignoring will of the people’
Labour MP Matthew Pennycook has defended the Government’s new planning reforms, insisting that local communities will retain their right to object to developments.
Speaking to GB News, Pennycook emphasised that “no one is saying that the views of local communities should be ignored”.
The defence comes as part of Labour’s broader initiative to streamline planning processes for major infrastructure projects across the UK.
The Government plans to reduce the number of legal challenges allowed against major infrastructure projects from three to one for “cynical cases lodged purely to cause delay.”
Matthew Pennycook said that they are not ignoring local communities
GB News
Speaking to GB News, Pennycook said: “No one is saying that the views of local communities, local people up and down the country, should be ignored under any of the changes we’re making. People will still have a right to object to planning applications.
“They will keep the right to challenge the lawfulness of government decisions. What we’re saying today is that as part of our plan for change, we’ve got to kick start economic growth.
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“We’ve got to streamline the delivery of the critical national infrastructure that our country needs, whether that’s energy, transport or aviation projects.
“We already made a number of changes to national planning policy last year to aid with that objective. We’re making further changes to the planning and infrastructure bill we’re bringing forward in the coming months.
“As part of that package, what we’re saying today is that your ability to bring forward repeated judicial review permission requests shouldn’t be allowed.
“We’re going to reduce the number of those permission requests from three to two in most cases. And in cases where a judge says that this challenge has no merit whatsoever from three to one, that will get the delivery of critical national infrastructure speeded up.
Keir Starmer has vowed to defeat what he calls “blockers”
PA
“That will have a real world impact. Because, I’m sure your viewers put it to you repeatedly, it is just too difficult to get anything built in this country.”
The changes follow recommendations from Lord Banner KC’s review of legal challenges against major building projects.
Lord Banner said: “I saw broad consensus from claimants to scheme promoters that a quicker system of justice would be in their interests, provided that cases can still be tried fairly.”
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has vowed to defeat what he calls “blockers” who are preventing the UK from completing vital infrastructure projects.
The government plans to reduce the number of legal challenges allowed against major infrastructure project
GB News
“For too long, blockers have had the upper hand in legal challenges – using our court processes to frustrate growth,” Starmer said.
He added: “We’re putting an end to this challenge culture by taking on the NIMBYs and a broken system that has slowed down our progress as a nation.”
The Prime Minister described the reforms as “taking the brakes off Britain by reforming the planning system so it is pro-growth and pro-infrastructure.”
According to the government, projects that have faced significant delays include the Sizewell C nuclear plant, the A47 national highway project and new windfarms in East Anglia.
Southport killer Axel Rudakubana was caught on CCTV footage travelling to the Taylor Swift dance class where he murdered three girls.
Wearing a surgical face mask while armed with the blade, the then 17-year-old travelled five miles from his family home to the studio where he killed Alice da Silva Aguiar, Bebe King and Elsie Dot Stancombe on 29 July, last year.
CCTV footage shows the killer in the taxi and also getting out of the vehicle at The Hart Space.
Rudakubana was today (23 January) jailed for life with a minimum term of 52 years.
President Donald Trump has said the US does not need Canadian energy, vehicles or lumber as he spoke to global business leaders at the World Economic Forum.
Trump also reiterated his threat to impose tariffs on the country, saying it can be avoided if the neighbouring nation chose to “become a state” of the US.
“You can always become a state, and if you’re a state, we won’t have a deficit. We won’t have to tariff you,” he said to gasps in the hall in Davos.
Trump has threatened to impose up to 25% tariffs on Canadian imports, possibly by 1 February.
The renewed threat of tariffs has been met with deep unease by the trade-dependent Canada.
But it has also said it will consider significant countermeasures, including a “dollar-for-dollar” response if the Trump administration follows through.
Roughly 75% of Canada’s exports head south. In contrast, Canada accounts for a much smaller 17% of US exports, though it is the second largest US trading partner, behind Mexico.
Trump in his remarks on Thursday said Canada had been “very tough to deal with over the years”.
“We don’t need them to make our cars, we make a lot of them, we don’t need their lumber because we have our own forests… we don’t need their oil and gas, we have more than anybody,” he told forum attendees via video link from Washington DC.
Trump reiterated the assertion that the US has a trade deficit with Canada of between $200bn and $250bn. It’s not clear where he got that figure.
The trade deficit with Canada – expected to be $45bn in 2024 – is mostly driven by US energy demands.
The North American auto industry also has highly integrated supply chains.
Auto parts can cross the borders between the US and Mexico and Canada multiple time before a vehicle is finally assembled.
Trump has also tied the tariffs to border security, saying it will be imposed unless Canada increases security at the shared border.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has repeatedly said that everything is on the table in response if the tariffs are imposed.
That includes a tax or embargo on energy exports to the US, though some of Canada’s provincial leaders disagree with that response.
On Thursday, Trudeau told reporters that Canada’s goal is to avoid US tariffs altogether but it will step up its response “gradually” to seek the quick removal of levies if they are imposed.
Canada is also pitching itself as a reliable trading partner and a secure source to the US for energy and critical minerals as it lobbies American lawmakers in a bid to avoid the tariffs.
Economists suggest the US depends on Canadian products for energy security.
In 2024, Canadian energy exports came to almost $170bn (C$244bn), according to a recent analysis by TD Bank economists.
Trump also said on Thursday that businesses should make their products in the US if they want to avoid tariffs.
Tariffs are a central part of Trump’s economic vision – he sees them as a way of growing the US economy, protecting jobs and raising tax revenue.
The new president has ordered federal officials to review US trade relationships for any unfair practices by 1 April.
With reporting from Faisal Islam, economics editor, in Davos.
Politics
Inheritance tax raid on military families will raise ‘nothing’ for Treasury, ex-Chancellor claims
Former Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng has branded Labour’s plans to impose inheritance tax on military families as “total insanity”, warning the measure would raise “nothing” for the Treasury.
Speaking to GB News, Kwarteng criticised the policy that will affect death-in-service payments for Armed Forces personnel from April 2027.
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