Earlier in April this year, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced that the United Kingdom’s government will scrap the ‘non-dom’ tax status, prompting many ultra high net worth individuals to leave London in favour of more financially preferable destinations, such as Dubai and Monaco.

The term ‘non-dom’ describes a UK resident whose permanent home, or domicile, is outside of the UK for tax reasons. A non-dom can still expect to pay UK tax on the money they earn in the UK. One famous non-dom is Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s wife, Akshata Murty.

Another high-profile, ultra high net worth non-dom is entrepreneur Bassim Haidar, who has decided to “urgently” leave the UK as a result of the planned conclusion of the non-dom regime.

“There’s no two questions about this; we have looked at it from every angle and it just doesn’t make sense to stay here. This (the ending of the non-dom regime) is going to cost me millions and millions of dollars and pounds every year in taxes on money that I’ve actually made abroad and businesses that I’ve built abroad,” Haidar told The Guardian.

Nigerian-born Lebanese citizen Haidar built his fortune in telecommunications, and now sits atop an empire that includes fintech, logistics, energy, engineering and medicinal cannabis. This is in addition to a portfolio of more than a dozen properties across the world, including “more than ten properties in central London.”

Image courtesy of BH Holdings: Bassim Haidar

With a net worth near enough to the billion pound mark, and at the age of 53, Haidar has began searching for a new house, and tax domicile. At the top of the list is Monaco, before a look into living in Dubai. “What’s the logic of me living in the UK when other countries are offering no taxes at all? In Monaco there are no taxes, and no inheritance tax. We already have a property very close to Monaco, in the south of France. But we want to live in Monaco and become Monaco residents, and just spend time between both properties.”

Haidar says he has formed a working group of 29 non-doms, who have mostly planned to leave the UK before September, in order secure places for their children in private schools in their new countries before the start of the academic year. “We love London, we love the lifestyle, we love everything about it, and we’re gutted that we have to go, but we have to think of our future, and the future of our children,” Haidar said, adding that “with such a punitive tax system (now in the UK), for the protection of their future wealth it makes a lot of sense for them to leave and for us to leave.”

With the non-dom status set to be phased out from April 2025, it seems that the Principality can expect the arrival of many high and ultra high net worth individuals, bringing with them a welcome boost to the local economy in a multitude of sectors.