According to Financial Times News, a recent letter responding to the publication’s Lex column highlights the stark tax disparity between Revolut’s corporate contributions and its CEO’s potential personal tax liability. In the 2024 tax year, Revolut paid approximately £250 million in UK corporation tax, while CEO Nik Storonsky faces a potential tax bill exceeding £5 billion on his compensation package. The letter argues this creates a situation where the CEO’s personal tax payment would equal 20 years of the company’s corporate taxes, challenging the notion that the UK should prioritize keeping companies over their founders. The author contends that successful entrepreneurs often create multiple ventures throughout their careers, and current UK tax policy effectively encourages them to relocate to more favorable jurisdictions like Milan or Doha once they achieve significant success.
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The Mobile Founder Economy
The core issue extends far beyond Revolut’s specific situation to a fundamental shift in how value creation works in the modern economy. Unlike traditional industrial companies tied to physical assets and local workforces, today’s most valuable businesses are often built around intellectual property and global digital infrastructure that can operate from virtually anywhere. This creates unprecedented mobility for founders who can relocate their operations—and their future ventures—with relative ease. When tax policies fail to recognize this new reality, they risk driving away not just individual companies but entire entrepreneurial ecosystems that cluster around successful founders. The recent changes to Entrepreneurs’ Relief in the UK exemplify this disconnect, reducing incentives precisely when founders need them most.
The Underestimated Value of Serial Entrepreneurs
What the tax debate consistently misses is the multiplier effect of successful founders. While individual companies may fail—as most startups do—the entrepreneurs behind them accumulate invaluable experience, networks, and capital that fuel future innovation. A founder who builds a billion-dollar company typically goes on to launch additional ventures, angel invest in dozens of startups, mentor emerging entrepreneurs, and attract talent to their ecosystem. This creates a virtuous cycle where success begets more success. When tax policy drives these individuals abroad, it doesn’t just lose one company’s tax revenue—it loses the founder’s entire future economic output, including their investments, mentorship, and the gravitational pull they exert on global talent.
The Global Competition for Talent
The UK isn’t operating in a vacuum—it’s competing with jurisdictions that have deliberately designed tax systems to attract and retain successful entrepreneurs. Countries like Singapore, Switzerland, and the UAE offer favorable tax regimes specifically targeted at wealthy individuals and business creators. Even within Europe, Portugal’s Non-Habitual Resident regime and Italy’s 7% flat tax for new residents demonstrate how nations are actively competing for mobile talent. The UK’s current approach risks creating a “training ground” effect where entrepreneurs build their initial success in Britain but relocate once they achieve significant wealth, taking their future economic contributions with them.
Balancing Revenue and Retention
The challenge for policymakers is designing tax systems that capture appropriate revenue without driving away the very people who generate economic growth. Solutions might include graduated tax structures that recognize the difference between income and wealth creation, or incentives tied to long-term UK residency and continued investment in local ecosystems. The OECD’s work on entrepreneurship taxation suggests that balanced approaches can support both revenue collection and innovation. What’s clear is that treating founder compensation the same as regular income fails to account for the unique risks, timelines, and economic contributions involved in building transformative companies.
Beyond Banking: Sector-Wide Implications
While the Revolut example focuses on fintech, this dynamic affects innovation across sectors—from biotech and clean energy to artificial intelligence and space technology. The founders building tomorrow’s critical industries have more geographic flexibility than ever before, and they’re making location decisions based on entire ecosystems rather than single factors. Tax policy that drives away successful creators doesn’t just impact Treasury revenues—it weakens the entire innovation pipeline, reduces mentorship opportunities for emerging entrepreneurs, and diminishes the UK’s position in global technology leadership. The long-term cost of losing serial entrepreneurs likely far exceeds any short-term revenue gained from aggressive taxation of their success.
