Non-dom lobby group to meet Business and Trade officials as Budget looms

A newly formed non-dom lobby group is scrambling to arrange a crunch meeting with the new Minister for Investment, or her officials, as it seeks to make its case against the government’s plans to scrap the favourable tax status.

City AM understands that Foreign Investors for Britain (FIFB) has been in contact with the newly appointed minister and Darktrace co-founder Poppy Gustafsson, with representatives set to discuss the group’s proposals to replace the non-dom status with a new Tiered Tax Regime (TTR).

Under the FIFB’s plan non-doms would pay an annual charge of between £200,000 and £2m across four bands based on their net wealth. They would pay income tax on any UK earnings, but would be exempt from tax on their foreign assets or UK investments.

FIFB argues that the proposed regime would help stem the exodus of wealthy foreigners that many tax and wealth management advisers have warned would come to pass were the government to proceed with its current plans.

Objections to Labour’s plans have largely centred around the Starmer administration’s move to apply inheritance tax on assets held in a foreign trust, a benefit that the Conservatives had planned to keep despite their own plans to abolish the non-dom status.

Representatives from the body, which formed in June, have been engaged in a last ditch campaign to convince policymakers of the merits of their alternative proposal. They have already met Treasury officials, and were due to host a similar briefing last week with people in Starmer’s No. 10 operation before it was moved at the last minute.

Now the group has turned its attention to the new investment minister. Gustafsson was unable to meet the group in person, but it was suggested FIFB could brief her officials.

Sources with a key role in the non-dom debate told City AM that Gustafsson had “asked Foreign Investors for Britain to brief her team, which includes officials responsible for capital markets and asset management”.

“This is currently being scheduled as a face to face meeting prior to the Budget,” they added.

The TTR was cooked up with guidance from top City law firm Charles Russell Speechlys, and came off the back of polling of non-doms and their advisors that FIFB commissioned from Oxford Economics. 

The studies found that scrapping the non-dom regime without a replacement could cost the government £900m in lost tax receipts.

The Department for Business and Trade was approached for comment.