Property billionaire David Reuben has moved from his London home to Monaco, following changes to Britain’s tax regime that ended the non-domicile system and extended potential inheritance-tax exposure to long-term residents’ worldwide assets.
The 88-year-old, who shares second place on the Sunday Times Rich List with his brother Simon, left his home in Holland Park this summer, a spokesman for the brothers confirmed.
The spokesman declined to comment further on the reasons for the move. Simon Reuben has lived in Monaco for about 40 years, having moved there for health reasons.
The brothers were previously reported to have been non-doms, a status which allowed wealthy residents with permanent homes abroad to pay UK tax only on income earned in, or brought into, Britain.
That arrangement was abolished last year. The replacement residence-based system took effect on 6 April 2025, while tax advisers warned that the biggest concern for long-term residents was the prospect of 40% inheritance tax applying to assets held around the world.
Monaco does not levy income tax, capital gains tax or inheritance tax. The Reuben brothers’ combined wealth is estimated at almost £28 billion, while David Reuben alone is valued at $13.1 billion by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
More than a dozen billionaires with a combined wealth of £120 billion have left the UK in the two years since Labour came to power, according to an analysis of Bloomberg Billionaires Index data. That figure does not include Mr Reuben.
Chancellor John Healey is under pressure to raise revenue ahead of his first Budget on 28 October.
California’s billionaire tax battle
A similar debate is unfolding in California, where early voting has opened on Proposition 40, a proposed one-off 5% levy on the state’s roughly 200 billionaires.
Several high-profile billionaires, including Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, venture capitalist Peter Thiel, car-loan magnate Don Hankey, former Uber chief executive Travis Kalanick and film director Steven Spielberg, were reported to have left before the initiative’s 1 January 2026 residency cut-off.
Page, Brin, Thiel and Kalanick alone would have owed about $29 billion if the measure applied to them, more than a quarter of its projected $100 billion proceeds.
Mr Brin has donated $102 million to Building a Better California, the group campaigning against the proposal. Opponents have spent more than $187 million, compared with about $32 million in support, while two billionaire-backed measures, Propositions 41 and 42, would cancel Proposition 40 if either received more votes.
Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Ro Khanna rallied supporters of Proposition 40 in San Francisco, with Mr Sanders describing it as the most important ballot initiative in the country. California Governor Gavin Newsom has opposed the plan, warning that billionaires could simply move to another state to avoid the levy.
Not all of the state’s billionaires have been deterred. Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang told Bloomberg Television that he would pay whatever tax Silicon Valley imposed.
“We chose to live in Silicon Valley and whatever taxes they would like to apply, so be it,” Mr Huang said. “I’m perfectly fine with it, it never crossed my mind once.”
