"The rich" are fleeing Britain and France following high tax hikes.

[muriel_volestrangler]

71. A fact check on the British figures:

That's where the problems for the claimants start. Last week, Tax Research UK pointed out that drawing these conclusions ignores the elephant in the room: the fact that HMRC itself found evidence of £18 billion worth of 'forestalling' in the first 50p year.

In HMRC's own words:

"...there was a considerable behavioural response to the rate change, including a substantial amount of forestalling: around £16 billion to £18 billion of income is estimated to have been brought forward to 2009-10 to avoid the introduction of the additional rate of tax."

This suggests that the figures for 2009-10 are larger than would have otherwise been the case if the policy hadn't been announced and these people hadn't brought forward their declared income (certain people can alter the 'timing' of their income, sometimes to avoid changes in rates). HMRC confirm this in their latest statistics release:

"Forestalling in 2009-10 exerts a significant influence on the projected profile of combined liabilities due at higher and additional rates of tax. These are projected to have fallen in 2010-11 as incomes for the richest decline from forestalled to below ‘normal levels’, but recover in later years as these special factors subside, and economic recovery is assumed to build."

Claiming that thousands of millionaires simply 'left' the UK thus misses the point: a simple look at the figures shows that the overall number of taxpayers remained almost unchanged between 2009/10 and 2010/11. Following the introduction of the rate, much of the deterioration in declared incomes over £1 million will have been a result of abnormally high levels in 2009/10 due to forestalling.

Where forestalling occurs, we can also reasonably expect an 'unwinding' effect were the income figures will return to stability, which again demonstrates the partial picture painted by taking only the first year's effect of the policy in drawing conclusions about it's overall impact.

http://fullfact.org/factchecks/labour_50p_tax_rate_millionaires_leave_country-28645