The fear of a terrifying exit tax will send more billionaires abroad
asserted
fear → send → billionaires
It is the size of Chris Rokos’s tax bill that gives pause.
asserted
that → give → pause
Yes, the hedge fund founder is leaving London, to set up in Athens.
asserted
founder → leave → Athens
Yes, he is extremely wealthy, worth an estimated £2.9 billion.
asserted
he → estimate → ?
But that isn’t what sets his decision apart.
asserted
what → set → decision
Plenty of other entrepreneurs have departed the UK.
asserted
Plenty → depart → UK
But none have contributed as much to the nation’s public coffers as Rokos.
asserted
none → contribute → Rokos
The 55-year-old Londoner is third on the list of current highest-paying UK taxpayers, only exceeded by Betfred owners Fred and Peter Done and their families (£400m) and financial trader Alex Gerko (£331m).
asserted
Londoner → pay → 400
If Rokos’s exit does not sound alarm bells inside Downing Street, then it should.
asserted
it → sound → Street
To put it in context: his going is the equivalent to missing the tax receipts from 21,000 households, based on the average British family’s £15,700-a-year payment.
asserted
going → put → payment
His bill, calculates Dan Neidle, founder of the think tank Tax Policy Associates, “is enough to fund 4,500 teachers…
asserted
Neidle → calculate → teachers
we have entire taxes that raise less than £330m.”
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that → have → 330
‘His tax bill is enough to fund 4,500 teachers’
Rokos is used to hefty HMRC demands.
asserted
Rokos → fund → demands
True, they have been rising as his own financial success has increased.
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success → rise → ?
Is it really then, that he fears some sort of wealth charge, such as a mansion levy, coming down the track when John Healey presents his first Budget next month?
asserted
Healey → fear → Budget
Rokos owns Tottenham House near Marlborough in Wiltshire.
asserted
Rokos → own → Wiltshire
It’s a 100-room stately home, which is undergoing a £175m restoration.
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which → ’ → restoration
He is also the owner of Mawley Hall, an 18th-century country house in Shropshire, which was on the market for £10m before he bought it in 2018.
asserted
he → buy → 2018
It, too, is being refurbished.
asserted
It → refurbish → ?
In London, in 2007, he purchased the former Hyde Park West Hotel in Pembridge Square, Notting Hill.
asserted
he → purchase → Square
He paid £18m for the run-down hotel, formed from two adjacent listed houses.
asserted
He → pay → houses
So ambitious were his £20m improvement plans for his new home that Kensington and Chelsea council said they should be classed as a commercial development.
asserted
they → say → development
They encompassed a home cinema, basement swimming pool, 16ft deep diving pool and “climbing wall” under the house and garden.
asserted
They → encompass → house
The two houses were to be linked by an 80ft high glass atrium and suspended glass walkways.
asserted
houses → link → atrium
Rokos agreed to pay £500,000 in “planning gain” to be used for social housing in return for the council’s permission to build.
asserted
Rokos → agree → permission
So, yes, Rokos may expect to be hit by a whopping mansion tax charge.
uncertain
Rokos → expect → charge
There again, whatever Healey is contemplating in that regard, if indeed he is, would still be loose change for someone so rich.
asserted
he → contemplate → someone
No, what is particularly exercising him apparently, say sources close to him, is the prospect of an exit levy.
asserted
sources → exercise → levy
He is said to have taken the decision to leave because he was “terrified” about the “risk of an exit tax being introduced” after there was talk ahead of last year’s Budget that the then chancellor Rachel Reeves would impose a 20 per cent “settling-up charge” on wealthy emigrants.
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chancellor → say → emigrants
The idea that was mooted back then would see them charged capital gains of 20 per cent on their business assets when they relocated abroad.
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they → moot → assets
There would have been an option to delay payment but nevertheless that would still land a quitting Rokos with a bill that would make even him shudder.
asserted
him → delay → bill
But this mathematics whizz, who won a full scholarship to Eton and gained a first-class degree from Oxford University, could have chosen to settle there virtually at any time in his illustrious career and didn’t.
uncertain
who → win → career
He started in the City with UBS, then went to Goldman Sachs.
asserted
He → start → Sachs
That was followed by Credit Suisse, where he worked as a star trader under Alan Howard.
asserted
he → follow → Howard
Rokos was one of four heavy-hitters who left Credit Suisse with Howard in 2002 to begin their own asset management firm, Brevan Howard.
asserted
who → leave → firm
By 2012, Rokos had made so much money he “retired” from Brevan Howard to establish his own family office in Mayfair to manage his own fortune.
asserted
he → make → fortune
He could easily have decided then to head to Greece.
uncertain
He → decide → Greece
Three years later, still in London, he was back full-time, investing on behalf of clients with his own hedge fund, Rokos Capital Management.
asserted
he → invest → fund
In its first year of operation, it racked up gains of 20 per cent.
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it → rack → cent
Part of that return was based on heavy bets on Donald Trump winning the US presidential election.
asserted
Trump → base → election
…and 31 more, not listed.
The Aporia
