Twice as many taxpayers are filing departure forms as Britain faces warnings that it is driving away workers, entrepreneurs and some of its biggest taxpayers
A record 69,300 taxpayers filed forms with HM Revenue and Customs after leaving Britain in 2025-26, according to figures obtained from HMRC, adding to concerns over the country’s ability to retain workers, entrepreneurs and wealthy investors.
The figures, obtained by accountancy firm UHY Hacker Young through a Freedom of Information request, relate to digital P85 forms, which can be used by people leaving the UK to tell HMRC about their departure and claim back Income Tax they may be owed.
The number of taxpayers leaving has doubled since Labour came to power in 2024.
The figures should not be treated as a precise measure of permanent emigration, because not everybody leaving Britain submits a P85 and filing one does not necessarily mean somebody has left forever. Nevertheless, the direction of travel will make uncomfortable reading for a Labour Government that says economic growth and wealth creation are among its priorities.
Neela Chauhan, of UHY Hacker Young, said the trend was not confined to the super-rich, with working people and business owners increasingly considering whether they could secure a better tax deal overseas.
The figures arrive against a backdrop of a tax burden already forecast to reach historic levels.
The Office for Budget Responsibility expects National Accounts taxes to rise from 34.5 per cent of GDP in 2024-25 to 38.5 per cent by 2030-31, which would be the highest level on record. It says personal taxes account for much of that increase, including the effects of frozen tax thresholds, while changes to inheritance tax and capital gains tax also contribute.
For Labour’s critics, the danger is becoming increasingly obvious. Governments cannot simply assume that successful people, businesses and capital will remain in Britain regardless of how much tax is imposed upon them.
Entrepreneurs can relocate. Investors can move their money. International businesses can put their next office, fund or factory somewhere else. Highly skilled younger workers can choose to build their careers abroad. And some of Britain’s wealthiest taxpayers are already doing exactly that.
Perhaps the most striking recent example is billionaire hedge fund manager Chris Rokos.
Earlier this year, Rokos pledged £190 million to the University of Cambridge to establish the new Rokos School of Government. Cambridge described the gift as believed to be the largest individual donation to a British university in modern times. Yet just months later, reports emerged that Rokos was moving his tax residency from Britain to Greece and opening an office in Athens.
The significance to the Exchequer is potentially enormous.
Rokos was ranked as Britain’s third-biggest taxpayer after paying an estimated £330 million in tax in the latest year covered by the Sunday Times Tax List.
To put £330 million into perspective, the basic salary of an NHS Band 5 nurse in England currently ranges from £32,073 to £39,043. At the midpoint of that pay scale, £330 million is roughly equivalent to the basic annual salaries of around 9,000 nurses, although that comparison does not include employer pension contributions, National Insurance or other employment costs.
One man, in one year.
That is the uncomfortable arithmetic Labour needs to confront.
Taxing wealthy people may produce an attractive headline for ministers, but the calculation changes dramatically if those taxpayers decide to leave. A tax rate of 45 per cent imposed on income that has moved overseas can produce considerably less for the Treasury than a competitive tax regime that keeps entrepreneurs, investors and businesses based here.
Rokos is not the only prominent wealthy individual reported to have moved abroad. Recent reports have also highlighted departures involving steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal and other wealthy financiers, while billionaire Peter Hargreaves has warned that Britain cannot afford to keep losing major taxpayers.
This goes beyond billionaires.
Britain needs people willing to take risks, start companies, employ staff, invest capital, develop new technology and create the businesses that will provide tomorrow’s jobs and tax revenues.
Labour appears in danger of treating wealth creation as though it were a fixed pot of money waiting for the Treasury to divide up. It isn’t.
Wealth has to be created before it can be taxed.
Capital is mobile, talent is mobile and, increasingly, people are mobile too. Britain is competing with countries around the world for entrepreneurs, investors, scientists, financiers and skilled workers.
Other governments understand this. Greece, for example, offers qualifying wealthy foreign residents a flat annual tax arrangement on overseas income, one of the incentives attracting internationally mobile wealth. Rokos’s reported relocation to Greece has consequently become a striking example of the competition Britain faces.
Labour insists its reforms tell a different story.
The Government says the UK remains an attractive destination for talent and investment, citing Britain’s capital markets, universities and skilled workforce. Ministers also defend the abolition of the old non-dom regime as a matter of tax fairness. In a parliamentary answer this month, the Treasury said the replacement residence-based system was designed to remain internationally competitive and cited an OBR estimate that the reforms would raise £39.5 billion by 2030-31.
But tax forecasts are ultimately forecasts. What matters over the longer term is what taxpayers actually do.
And 69,300 P85 filings in a single year ought to give the Treasury serious pause for thought.
Britain should be trying to become the best country in the world in which to start a business, build a company, invest, innovate and succeed.
Instead, Labour risks sending precisely the opposite message: become successful and the Treasury will keep coming back for more.
There is a fundamental difference between taxing prosperity and destroying the conditions that create it.
If Britain drives away the people creating companies, jobs and taxable wealth, the bill does not simply disappear. The Government must either cut spending, borrow more or collect the money from taxpayers who remain.
Chris Rokos reportedly contributed around £330 million to the Exchequer in a single year and pledged £190 million to one of Britain’s greatest universities.
Britain should be asking how it attracts more people capable of creating that kind of wealth, investment and philanthropy.
Instead, under Labour, the increasingly urgent question is how many more will decide they would rather create it somewhere else.
Main Image: For illustration purposes
