Amidst the world’s troubles, readers of the Times of London awoke this week to the screaming headline: “Billionaires are fleeing the UK; and wealth tax could make more quit”.

This may have prompted Saigon-style images of desperate men, clutching their gold bars, scrambling to board private jets before the Labour government pounced. Somewhat anti-climactically, it then transpired that a mere 18 “dollar-billionaires” have been lost to us over the course of two years.

Stories about wealthy people fleeing to avoid taxes are scarcely a novelty. Some of Scotland’s most feted thespians and entrepreneurs have been following that route for decades. The others seem to have survived and feel no envy for the departed brethren, boring each other in sun-kissed places.

The “scare story” keeps running, however, as a deterrent to any government initiatives which might inconvenience the greediest. Never mind that it was Brexit which prompted more such departures than anything else. According to the Tax Justice Network, an average of 30 press articles a day appeared about “the non-existent millionaire exodus in 2024”, fed by lobbyists hired to promote the fiction.

Read more by Brian Wilson

In fact, many wealthy people want to do the right thing, particularly if they have acquired that status by creating businesses and employment to match. A fractional increase in taxation is not going to send them scurrying for their passports. As entrepreneurs, they are likely to be more concerned about the impact of business taxes than personal ones.

The old statistic which gave rise to a theatre company, when seven per cent of the people owned 84 per cent of the wealth, is seriously in need........

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