What have non-doms got to do with fairer housing?

A guest piece from the #fairerhousing campaign.

Unless you have been very pre-occupied by other matters in the last week or so, you will know by now what a non-dom is, if you didn’t know before. Someone who has a lot of money, lives in the UK, but states that, for tax purposes, their real home is somewhere else. 

By this means, non-doms can avoid tax on income earned abroad, which includes investments in overseas companies.  It isn’t just the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s wife and a few rich politicians that have opted for this status.

We learnt last week that there are 75,000 people in Britain who have this ‘non-dom’ status, and that includes more than 1 in 5 bankers earning £125,000 a year or more. Remember all those years of austerity while we, as taxpayers, had to bail the bankers out for their high risk greed schemes that didn’t come off?

OK, so what has this got to do with the housing crisis?  Quite simply, we will never have a fairer housing system until we have a fairer tax system.  While we have so many tax avoiding billionaires investing in property, it will never be affordable, and there will never be enough tax revenue to enable local Councils to invest in the social rented homes which most victims of the housing crisis so desperately need.

If you are one of those whose home is insecure, in poor condition, hard to head, overcrowded or simply costing too much, welcome to Fairer Housing.

Please help us to make our voice heard, by telling your local MP your views about tax injustice, or adding your thoughts to this blog.