Another great enemy of the Hollywood pay cheque is the Inland Revenue. Currently,
a big name American actor will lose around 46% of their fee in taxes. But if that sounds like plenty, it’s peanuts compared to the sums British big earners were expected to hand over by the Labour governments of the 1970s.
Chancellor Dennis Healey’s 98 per cent tax rate so terrified the likes of Michael Caine and Sean Connery, they and many other stars left for sunnier climes (the income tax-free haven of Monaco strangely proving a bigger draw than the similarly-advantaged Isle of Man). It’s not just tax, either: car insurance, for example, could cost a name actor 45% more than, say, a banker.
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