How many times can one Billionaire move to Monaco?

You may have seen, following the sensationalised scaremongering around Greek-British billionaire Chris Rokos supposedly fleeing to Greece, another wave of headlines emerged over the last week about the apparent departure of billionaire David Reuben.

But according to evidence uncovered by our friends TaxWatch, despite the wall to wall media coverage claiming Ruben left “this summer” scared of rumors about Labour’s potential tax policies, in reality he was already living in Monaco ten years before Labour entered government, having moved in 2014. Fortunately, us and our allies have been able to expose this dodgy reporting on social media, with official documentation and eventually a Guardian article with a statement from a spokesperson for Ruben’s family. Yet a number of outlets still have the original stories online with no correction or retraction. Nor has it stopped billionaire-owned Bloomberg from using Reuben’s estimated fortune as one of the many questionable building blocks in its much-publicised “$160 billion exodus from Britain” story.

In fact, beyond a thoroughly discredited, and quite possibly fabricated, report from Henley & Partners, the evidence consistently shows tax rates are not the primary factor determining where people choose to live. Indeed, that body of evidence grew again this week. Rigorous research into the effects of Massachusetts recent decision to increase taxes on the rich, showed it did not increase emigration, and raised considerable amounts of cash. Given how easy it is to move from one US state to another this is another compelling piece of evidence that fears of an exodus are unfounded. 

But because hard data on individual movements is limited, speculation is often allowed to masquerade as fact. Agenda-setting newspapers run stories based on rumour and hearsay. Wealthy individuals issue conveniently timed threats or announcements, the billionaire-owned press amplifies them (or just make them up, apparently), and before long, a threat becomes a “trend”, and a trend becomes accepted wisdom. That makes these stories difficult to fight. Particularly when parts of the media appear willing to publish first and ask questions later.