“Look at me – I’m a thieving enemy of the people”

Times are changing for luxury brands. The taxman is on the prowl and attitudes towards showy wealth are hardening. That's bad news for high-end goods makers, says Merryn Somerset Webb.

If you lived in Italy today would you buy a new super yacht?I suspect you would not. Why? Because the taxman might see it and if he did he might pop round to ask exactly how you paid for it.

And given the size of the black economy in Italy, that might be a question you didn't want to answer.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.