Britain’s second richest person leaves for Monaco amid tax bite

Britain’s second richest person has left Britain for Monaco where billionaires can avoid paying income tax, inheritance tax or capital gains tax, according to reports.

David Reuben, who also partly owns Newcastle United alongside Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, is joining his brother Simon in the principality, The Sunday Times reported. 

The two brothers were second on the newspaper’s Rich List with a combined wealth of £28bn. 

They join a flock of billionaires exiting the UK in the last two years, including the hedge fund investor Chris Rokos and the Goldman Sachs executive Richard Gnodde. 

The reason for his departure is unknown.  

Several other rich Brits live in Monaco, including Sir Lewis Hamilton and INEOS’s Sir Jim Ratcliffe. 

Tax questions hang over wealth exodus

Lawyers and economists, including the likes of Stephenson Harwood LLP’s James Quarmby and Panmure Liberum’s Simon French, have linked the string of wealthy investors and high taxpayers leaving Britain to new HMRC rules introduced by the Labour government. Several surveys have suggested that Britain’s richest were considering leaving over a high tax burden.

Since mid-2024, the government has ended the non-dom tax regime, added VAT onto private school fees and raised capital gains taxes. 

Pressure from the Labour Party has demanded that Chancellor John Healey increased taxes on the richest, including by raising capital gains taxes. Last year, dozens of MPs asked Healey to introduce a wealth tax on assets worth more than £10m. 

Debates over tax have become a key dividing line between Labour and other parties. 

In research on Sunday, the Centre for Policy Studies, a left-leaning think tank, warned that rates in the UK were about the same as the European average due to the tax gap on social security contributions. 

Robert Colvile, a CPS chief who is advising the government on small business taxes, said there was a “myth” across economists and campaigners from the left that the UK had a lower rate. 

“We simply have a system whereby some entitlements funded through general taxation in other countries are funded differently here,” Colville said. 

“Once you take into account private pensions, student loans, elderly social care and so on, you begin to see the full picture.”