Taxes

Even a Global Wealth Tax Can't Solve This Problem

Raise the price of an activity and people do less of it or restructure how they report it. Mobility was never the sole issue.

Veronique de Rugy | 6.25.2026 3:25 PM

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Serena Williams and California Gov. Gavin Newsom (Hongbo Chen / Action Plus/Newscom/HECTOR AMEZCUA/TNS)

Last week, nearly every elite men's tennis player skipped one of London's marquee tournaments. Only one of the world's top 10 showed up at Queen's Club, the traditional Wimbledon warmup; stars including Alexander Zverev, Daniil Medvedev, Taylor Fritz, and Ben Shelton were playing 300 miles away in Halle, Germany. A culprit was likely Britain's tax code, which doesn't stop at taxing prize money earned on British soil.

It also taxes a slice of a player's global endorsement income, prorated by how many days of the year they happen to spend in the U.K. Fail to advance far enough in the tournament, and the tax bill on your sponsorship deals can exceed your payout. So, the players who get to choose where they compete are now choosing somewhere else.

"It's not about the money for playing," retired superstar Rafael Nadal once explained. "They take from the sponsors….This is very difficult. I am playing in the U.K. and losing money."

File this story under "how people dodge taxes by leaving." Evidence for the phenomenon was piling up long before........

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