No, just the opposite. In general, the things wealthy people buy (luxuries) experience much larger swings in demand due to price changes like added taxes (in economic terms, "the elasticity of demand"). It's because they are only wants and not needs. They are also usually easily swapped. Instead of buying your wife those diamond earrings, you could get her a painting or a trip to Spain. And rich people are often very money savvy.

It's the necessities that people will continue to buy (or at least replace with close substitutes), regardless of what happens to the price.

Obviously, in this case it worked out much differently, but no, in general you can't say the wealthy people don't respond to price changes due to their wealth.

> without any concern over the cost of doing it?

indeed thats why to have accountants and lawyers, the issue here is that non-dom meant that you could avoid paying tax on stuff you earnt outside of the UK. for example if you have a lot of income being generated in the USA, then being a non-dom meant that you could avoid paying tax here in the UK at the same time.

For US citizens its a bit harder, as you're liable for tax on all income, regardless of source. I'm not sure how they get round that, debt financing or something similar I imagine

That's exactly what I don't get. If you're a billionaire and your whole lifestyle goes topsy-turvy because of some new legislation, what's the point of being a billionaire?

E.g. Lakshmi Mittal, one of the richest persons in the UK, was rumored to consider moving to the UAE because of the non-dom rule changes.[1] To me it's ridiculous that a person this rich feels such weak control over where they should live. And it's not like moving from the UK to the UAE is like moving from Switzerland to Austria. It's a humongous upset by most measures.

[1] https://www.cityam.com/steel-billionaire-lakshmi-mittal-to-d...

I imagine the exodus was where the corporation is incorporated. And on paper someone with billions of dollars now has a mere 500k. Or whatever loophole their lawyers decided to figure out.

Yes, but if they have to pay a fair amount of tax they will only be able to afford a 40 metre yacht, rather than the 50 metre yachts that all their frenemies have and that just won't do.

I don't think these people would be superrich if they wouldn't be optimizing their taxes, at least at some level. I would guess taxes are the typically the biggest single expense the really rich people pay.

> however people no longer necessarily invest where they live

This is a problem. The UK is experiencing what the US is experiencing so I hope you don't mind.

I'm all invested in the US. My citizenship, my family ties, my finances, and my language. Immigrating to a five-eyes nation would be far easier for me (racism aside).

There's no going back for me and my family, unless I want to immigrate out and start from the very bottom with absolutely nothing.

Because I'm a naturalized US citizen and I'm not white, I also harbor no illusions: There's every reason to believe that if this administration and its extremists continue down its trajectory, I and my family will eventually be subject to the worst.

I'm also not wealthy: So it's in my best interest to be a moderating voice, fight for the values that define my home, be seen giving back/paying it forward, and push for the best outcome for my home.

I'm not sure how to quantify the value add of this, and the wealthy transnationals who distinctly take without being a net positive--because they can so easily relocate--are a large part of the problem.

Indeed. The millionaires that are whining about paying their fair share of tax can ** off and not pay their taxes somewhere else. Good riddance.

Exactly. These people did not come to create new companies, employ people, come up with new products. These people came to London to party, not to contribute. They will take their party with them, but not their contributions - because there are none.

If that would have been the actual response, it wouldn't have made sense to proceed with the reform. The goal of treasury should be to maximise social welfare, not lose tax money just to dunk on the ultrarich.

California actually has very low property taxes.

Which according to economists is the wrong way around: it's better to have taxes on land (because it doesn't discourage land existing - land is fixed) than to have taxes on work income (which on the margin, discourages working)

Or maybe it’s just below bad enough to overcome the network effects of living in the Bay Area.

> virtue signaling

I wouldn’t call moving to another place to pay less in taxes a virtue.

They are irreplaceable assets that would probably cost north of a trillion dollars if someone tried to build them today, and the oil refining countries club is pretty exclusive. Wildly shortsighted from a big picture national capacity point of view.

I've often asked myself with regards to the rich, "Don't they have enough money"?

I've come to realize the answer is nearly always NO. They want (and believe they need) more.

Yes, because it is all about status and having more money than the other guy. That is why no amount is ever going to be enough for some of these people.

But I don't really understand why they spend it on useless baubles. If you spend £50m on a fancy London house, a yacht and a some super cars, most people (British people anyway) will think you are a wanker. But if you spent some of that money on schools and hospitals in a poor country, you would probably be treated like a minor god in that country.

Well for Norway specifically they have 1.1% wealth tax and humongous 37% capital gain tax (of course it's lower for real estate because Europeans like fighting stock investments).

If you have say 4 million USD and invest in stocks expecting say 7% per year you will pay 103k USD in cap gain tax and then 44k in wealth tax for a grand total of almost 150k/year.

That's enough to fund Switzerland lifestyle let alone life in multiple other countries that levy 0 or close to 0 cap gain tax for long term gains. It's difference between comfortable retirement and having to work.

Maybe it doesn't make much difference if you're very wealthy but for those who just managed to get financial independence it's huge.

The reason not to move to WA is the capital gains tax in WA is unpredictable. Someone else had explained that it’s actually against the state’s constitution but was upheld by the one sided state courts. And the legislators adjusted the rates upward once already even though it’s a very new tax. The state budget is in a bad shape and expected to get worse, so it’s likely they’ll keep increasing the tax every year.

In the specific case of Massachusetts, living in New Hampshire (no income tax or sales tax) instead is pretty practical for a lot of people. Doesn't help you that much if you commute to an MA employer but I know a lot of people who did commute in from NH and, these days, a lot of people who became officially remote workers in NH.

Of course, there are lots of other reasons why out-of-staters might choose to move to MA.