Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

The UK closed a tax loophole. Guess what. NYC can expect the same.

The Wall Street Journal reports The U.K. Closed a Tax Loophole for the Global Rich. Now They’re Fleeing.

The U.K. is trying to tax the superrich. It’s off to a bumpy start.

“I’m on my way out,” said Bassim Haidar, a Nigerian-born Lebanese businessman who moved here in 2010. “There comes a time when you don’t feel welcome anymore, and it’s time to just start packing and leaving.”

Haidar is one of the estimated 74,000 who used a centuries-old tax loophole, abolished in April, that catered to the global rich. The nondomiciled—or non-dom status, as it is known—allowed foreigners living in the U.K. to pay tax only on what they earned domestically. Profits made abroad were ignored unless brought into the U.K.

Beset by high public debt and crumbling infrastructure, the U.K. hoped eliminating non-doms would bring in about $45 billion by 2030. But instead of paying up, wealthy expats are rushing for the exits, sparking questions about whether the effort will raise any money at all.

The British experiment has laid bare the difficult politics of taxing the rich. Taxing high earners has become a rallying cry on the left as a solution to income inequality and fraying social-safety nets. Low-tax advocates say taxes on the wealthy are counterproductive, driving away job creators and big spenders.

One challenge of taxing the wealthy is that they are highly mobile, with houses around the world, private jets and an army of advisers who can sort out visas and bureaucratic paperwork quickly. Jurisdictions such as Dubai, Italy and Monaco have rolled out the red carpet, offering no taxation or structures similar to the U.K.’s old non-dom status.

Haidar is selling his U.K. properties and plans to leave this summer. He’ll split his time between Dubai and Greece.

Wealthy Britons have been trying to escape the U.K.’s high tax rates for decades. In the 1970s, the Rolling Stones moved to France to avoid taxes, while David Bowie went to Switzerland.

The lucrative non-dom loophole had the opposite effect, drawing rich foreigners to London. 

The U.K. always knew that some rich residents would leave because of the tax changes and built that into its forecasts. The U.K.’s independent budget watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility, estimated that among a large subset of non-doms, around 12% will move. But it warned this month that departures could be higher and said the U.K.’s “growing reliance on this small and mobile group of taxpayers therefore represents a fiscal risk.”

A report from the Centre for Economics and Business Research, commissioned by the Land of Opportunity campaign, forecast that a higher share of non-doms would leave and suggested the government could lose money if the migration rate tops 25%.

In New York City, here is the campaign platform of Democrat Zohran Mamdani

Mamdani now says he does not support defunding the police.

He now does not want to “defund” the police. He just wants yo cut $1 billion out of a $6 billion budget.

The New York Times addresses the question Who’s Running for Mayor of New York City?

What a pathetic lot.

Sliwa, a Republican, has no chance and he won’t back out. That’s likely irrelevant.

However, three candidates running as independents is relevant. If they all stay in, they will split the vote ending what little chance they did have.

It’s even worse than I thought looking at the Platform of Jim Walden

To tackle affordability, he’s pledged $1 billion a year in rent relief for the city’s most rent-burdened tenants, funded immediately by cutting ineffective programs and using the city’s budget surplus, and in the future, by instituting a 0.75% “micro-tax” on goods and services, which he said would raise an estimated $60 billion over four years. Walden said the tax is small enough that it won’t cause companies to alter their business decisions. He would need state approval for the tax.

He also wants to create a contract-based rent-stabilization program to incentive more affordable housing.

Given that anyone would be better than Zohran Mamdani, I suggest Andrew Cuomo, Eric Adams, and Jim Walden agree to pulling a single name out of the hat to run as the independent.

Otherwise, and perhaps anyway, a Marxist will be running New York City.