Now the billionaires are crying poor: Dyson rages over inheritance tax he wants to avoid paying
Vacuum tycoon says family firm faces ruin under new rules—but if ordinary families must pay death duties, why should the super-rich get a free pass?
Sir James Dyson is furious. The billionaire inventor, whose name adorns everything from vacuum cleaners to hand dryers, says Rachel Reeves’ changes to inheritance tax have put his family business “at risk” and could force it to be sold when he dies.
The message from the man worth an estimated £20 billion is stark: the tax bill would be too big, the cash simply not there, and the business could not survive being passed on to his children.
Cue the world’s smallest violin.
Changes to Business Property Relief
From next April, Business Property Relief—the little-known but hugely valuable perk that has allowed wealthy families to pass companies down the generations tax-free—will be curtailed. The first £2.5 million of a business will still be exempt, but anything above that will face inheritance tax at 20 per cent. For ordinary families, who pay 40 per cent inheritance tax on anything above a modest threshold, this may sound like luxury complaining.
Sir James insists the changes are “really, really damaging”. He says Dyson would need to find “billions of cash” to meet the tax bill, something he claims is impossible. To pay the tax, he argues, the company would have to be sold, ending its status as a family firm and betraying the ethos on which it was founded.
One rule for them, another for us
But this is where the argument starts to wobble. Millions of ordinary people don’t have the option of rearranging their affairs when the taxman comes calling. If they inherit a house, savings or a small business over the threshold, they pay up. They don’t get radio interviews to complain that it’s unfair. They certainly don’t get bespoke reliefs designed to soften the blow.
Why should billionaires be different?
Sir James argues that business valuations are “paper money”, based on multiples of earnings rather than piles of cash sitting in a vault. Yet this paper wealth is precisely what makes him one of the richest men in Britain. It buys influence, access and, until now, generous tax treatment. When that treatment is trimmed back, suddenly the system is broken.
The Prime Minister has already watered down the plans after backlash from farmers, lifting the threshold from £1 million to £2.5 million. That same threshold now applies to family businesses. It is hardly the confiscatory raid critics claim. For most people, £2.5 million would be a life-changing fortune. For Dyson, it barely scratches the surface.
Sir James says he wants his son Jake to take over, to keep Dyson in the family. Admirable enough. But running a business in Britain is not a hereditary right. It is a privilege granted by society: a licence to operate, protected by laws, infrastructure and a workforce educated at public expense. With that privilege comes an obligation to contribute fairly.
Tough luck if they don’t like it
If nurses, shopkeepers and small homeowners are expected to pay inheritance tax, so should billionaires. If they find that intolerable, they are free to sell up, move on or restructure—just as everyone else must. What they should not do is demand special treatment while lecturing the rest of the country about ethos, fairness and wealth creation.
If Britain is good enough to make you a billionaire, it’s good enough to expect you to pay your share. And if that price is too high, perhaps the problem isn’t the tax system, but the sense of entitlement.
And if after all that the billionaires still don’t like it, perhaps they might like their literal freedom removed as well as their license to operate.