£477m taxpayer quits UK for Greece as October Budget tax rises loom
Britain's third largest individual taxpayer is leaving the country. Chris Rokos, who reportedly handed over £477 million in tax last year alone, is moving to Greece, where the rules for very wealthy residents are far softer. The announcement landed on the same day the Labour Chancellor John Healey used a press conference to say he wanted to see the economy growing faster.
Mr Rokos is 55 and worth an estimated £2.3 billion. He runs a hedge fund that looks after more than £22 billion in the UK. A spokesperson for him declined to comment on the reported move when approached by the Financial Times.
Greece offers new residents who qualify as high net worth individuals a flat annual charge of 100,000 euros on their foreign income, instead of taxing that income at the normal rates. The arrangement can run for 15 years, and anyone using it has to meet set conditions, including investment requirements.
The move follows months of speculation that the next Budget, due in October, will bring further tax rises, including some aimed at the very wealthy. Asked about it this morning, Mr Healey would not rule anything out. "If I respond to speculation now, that only fuels more speculation," he said.
Conservative shadow chancellor Andrew Griffith said Mr Rokos was Britain's third highest taxpayer and had given large sums to charities and educational causes. "Yet another wealth and job creator leaving Britain is bad news for all of us," he said. "Whatever your personal finances, wealth creators leaving the UK means fewer opportunities for young people and leaves the rest of us paying more." He said the country's best and brightest were choosing where to live and were "not choosing Labour's Britain".
The news came on a day Jaguar Land Rover confirmed it is axing 4,000 jobs. Reform UK's shadow chancellor Robert Jenrick said Mr Healey had delivered "a dire and dreary speech that will change absolutely nothing" while thousands of people were losing their work, adding that the Chancellor was beginning to make Rachel Reeves "seem inspiring".
Ms Reeves, now the former Chancellor, raised a range of taxes in her Budgets, including the national insurance contributions paid by employers. That was despite Labour pledging 52 times in its 2024 general election manifesto not to increase income tax, VAT or national insurance. Months after those rises, it was reported that up to 1,000 jobs a day were being lost as a result. The new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, has said repeatedly that he intends to stick to the manifesto.
For most households, none of this changes the figure at the bottom of this month's payslip. What it does show is the shape of the argument heading into October. When the very wealthiest can pick a country with a friendlier bill and simply go, the money the Treasury still needs has to be found elsewhere, and elsewhere usually means the people who cannot move their job, their family or their mortgage. The test of the Budget will be what it asks of ordinary earners, not what it promises about growth.
