Britain's beleaguered Chancellor Rachel Reeves is not bad news for everybody. Among those prospering are the country's tax advisers.
"We’ve been busy and we’re getting busier," says tax adviser Oriana Morrison. "It’s been like that every single day for one year and 18 days – business is almost 100 per cent up. Why so time-specific? "Because that’s when Labour took charge."
Ms Morrison runs her own consultancy, ECNMX, based in London’s West End. An economist from Edinburgh University, Ms Morrison, 41, founded the accountancy and tax advisory firm in 2010.
Her speciality is advising elite performers in sport and entertainment – stars and future stars, in other words. Understandably, she is discreet about naming them, but they include top boxers, footballers, athletes and pop stars.
She has advised football clubs, too, including three teams that took part in the recent Fifa World Club Cup in the US. "Every participant was subject to tax in the US," Ms Morrison says. "We helped a Brazilian and two European clubs navigate the event. The US tax authorities were not prepared for it, so a lot of hand-holding was required," Ms Morrison says.
A Brazilian by birth, Ms Morrison grew up in Rondonia, in the north-west of the country. On her gap year, she visited Britain – and has never left. "One thing led to another," she says. "I started working in the City, in the stock market, then I decided to go to a university in the UK, to try to break the glass ceiling."
It’s a recurring theme, challenging and testing the boundaries. She graduated in 2009, "a year after the global meltdown, bang on the onset of recession. I had to find work and quick," she says.
Back in London, Ms Morrison landed a job with the Performing Rights Society, or PRS, the organisation that collects and pays royalties for music creators. She loved the job. "It was highly educational," she says. "I realised that many of the musicians who had become my friends were asking where is my money, where is my cheque, where has the money gone? I thought I could make a career out of helping them answer those questions."
But it was also a time "in the aftermath of the financial crisis, when no one would hire a foreign woman with a two-year visa," she says. So, she went alone.
Ms Morrison is not without close connections herself. Her husband is Jamie Morrison, drummer of the Stereophonics.
With him she learnt first-hand how the industry works – how performers could be dropped by labels and lose everything.
"I saw how the system exploits talent and I made it my mission to educate and protect high performers through proactive tax and financial planning," Ms Morrison says. "I see my role as empowering athletes, artists, and creatives to pursue their dream while protecting their future."
That used to mean negotiating the whole gamut of financial regulations covering overseas earnings, especially in the US. Increasingly, though, it has meant assisting UK clients to settle abroad in a more tax-friendly environment.
Heading the list of favoured destinations is the US, followed by the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Monaco and Switzerland are also up there.
There is a certain irony in going to the US, "because a lot of Americans are relocating from there due to the political situation," Ms Morrison says. "We advise them as well."
Ms Morrison is flat out, with no sign of the demand ending. Every day there are reports of wealthy people leaving the UK, something that will only worsen if the speculation proves correct and Ms Reeves imposes a ‘mansion tax’ and further levies on the rich to try to plug the gaping chasm in the public finances.
Meanwhile, Americans, concerned about President Donald Trump and the direction of their country, are also departing. The latest study reveals the lettings market for luxury homes across Central London has more than doubled in size during the first six months of 2025, as the wealthy choose to rent rather than buy.
Beauchamp Estates, the estate agent that focuses on the prime Central London property market, surveys new luxury houses and apartment rentals across Central London of more than £1,000 per week or £4,333 per month. The midyear edition of their annual Lettings in London Survey records 1,588 deals during the first half of 2025, generating a combined rental income of £82.8 million, compared to the same period in 2024, when there were just 559 deals, generating an income of £32.6m.
Four factors, they say, are driving the market’s growth of 154 per cent: An influx of wealthy American, Middle Eastern (Arab and Israeli) and western European tenants into London; UK non-doms selling their London home and renting as they prepare to relocate to places like Dubai and Monaco; stamp duty making people choose to rent rather than buy; and a reduction in the supply of rental properties (pushing up lettings values) as traditional landlords have exited the UK lettings market.
They add that "houses being let during 2025 have achieved a higher price premium compared to apartments because a significant proportion (40 per cent) of international tenants have been wealthy families wanting houses rather than flat seeking singletons or couples." So, moving for good or at least the foreseeable future, in other words. That is also borne out by the figures – of the £82.8m of rental income, £77.4 million (93 per cent) is for long-term rental agreements and £5.4m (7 per cent) from short-term lets.
Leading estate agent Knight Frank adds that the exodus trend has created opportunities for UAE-based buyers to move into the market.
Ms Morrison is benefiting from the movement. "People in the UK who would never previously have thought about moving are now considering their options," she says. "They are feeling the tax burden, feeling the effects of inflation and interest rates. They are suffering a sense of despair, of unfairness, at being asked to shoulder more and more of the burden, while seeing nothing in it, in return, for themselves."
The government expects and dishes it out, says Ms Morrison, without realising that the wealthy can vote with their feet. "Ultimately, we’re all human beings, we respond to incentives," she says. "People are paying taxes while at the same time they can see no improvement in public services. They are also having to earn more because their money does not go as far as it once did."
What she is witnessing, is that "everyone is on manoeuvres right now". They are selling in one place and buying or renting in another, preparing the ground for when they may jump ship. "People who work abroad a lot, like touring musicians, are minimising their stay in the UK, they’re reducing their exposure to the UK before they trigger a departure for good," Ms Morrison says.
So they are looking at their passports, applying for visas, buying and renting residences. "No one expects conditions to improve, not anytime soon. They all expect things to get worse. They want to open a door they can go through if it does worsen," Ms Morrison says.
It is a difficult decision to make, and expensive. Generally, Ms Morrison reckons net wealth of £3m is the cut-off, above which the financial benefits make it worthwhile.
What is easily forgotten, she says, is that "people see rich people and assume they are OK. But their lives must have purpose. There must be more to it than paying taxes and coping with the rising cost of living. They want enough money to be comfortably off."
Currently, in Britain, "fairness has been lost," Ms Morrison says. "I believe in progressive taxation but not if the marginal rate is so high. Likewise, I don’t believe in inheritance tax. The passing on of privilege is a prerogative, a biological principle. We want to benefit our offspring as much as we’re able." She laughs. "Perhaps it’s because I am from the Amazon that I feel that most strongly."
With that insight, she has to go. Thanks to Reeves, she’s got even more people to see and to serve.
