Non-doms: 12% of residents in London’s richest parts claimed status in 2018

theguardian.com:

More than one in 10 residents of some of London’s wealthiest neighbourhoods have claimed “non-dom” status at some point, meaning they paid no tax on their offshore income.

UK-based people who have benefited from this special tax status by claiming another country as their legal “domicile” made up more than 12% of residents in two parliamentary constituencies in 2018 – Kensington, and the Cities of London and Westminster, according to an analysis of HM Revenue and Customs data. In five of the most affluent council wards they accounted for more than a quarter of residents.

The study by the London School of Economics and the University of Warwick found that the number of people who had ever claimed non-dom status in the UK rose from 162,000 in 2001 to 238,000 in 2018.

It found that these people were most commonly working in finance, management consultancy and accountancy, with 22% of top earning bankers having claimed non-dom status.

It emerged on Wednesday that Akshata Murthy, the wife of Rishi Sunak, claims non-dom status, which would allow her to save millions of pounds in tax on dividends collected from her families IT business empire.

The highest earning non-doms work in the film industry and sport, likely to be famous actors, directors, producers and Premier League football players, according to the researchers. Their average earnings in 2018 were £2m, almost four times more than the income of non-dom bankers.

Outside London, some of the highest numbers of non-doms were found in Oxford and Cambridge, where they made up more than 1% of the population in two parliamentary constituencies. These included 310 people working in higher education, who the researchers said were likely to be foreign senior managers and professors