Alfie Best left school at the age of 12 and went on to build a vast empire of caravan sites up and down the UK, which put him on the Sunday Times rich list—but he won’t be returning home any time soon.
Alfie Best, Britain’s richest Gypsy with a fortune of £700 million, has revealed why he’ll never return to the UK.
The business mogul, 52, climbed his way up from leaving school at 12 to the top of the Sunday Times rich list and has swapped the UK for the glittering shores of Monaco.
Alfie made his fortune with a sprawling empire of caravan parks called Wyldecrest and is now living it up in Monaco, where he doesn’t have to pay any UK income tax.
Alfie, who’s on course to become the world’s first ‘gypsy billionaire,’ told MailOnline: “It’s true I don’t pay personal income tax by living in Monaco, but all my companies are still in the UK, so they will pay tax.”
He added: “I have always paid my fair share of taxes and will continue to do so. The only difference is that I pay no personal income tax here in Monaco. So when I get dividends from my companies, there is no income tax. It is no longer Great Britain; it is Broken Britain.
“If you are a successful businessman, you are punished by the taxman, and I have had enough of that. I’ve been hounded for seven years and had enough of it.”
Alife had a humble start. He was born on the side of a road in Leicester in April 1970 to a poor gypsy family. By age 10, Alfie was tarmacing driveways with his father and left school at 12. Two years later, he started his first business, buying and selling cars and vans.
He got a job earning £70 a week in a telephone shop, but three weeks later, he set up his own, and within 18 months, he had 13 shops in London. He later sold them all and invested in property, starting with touring and static caravan parks before buying his first mobile home park in Romford, Essex.
He now owns Europe’s largest operator of holiday and residential park homes, The Wyldecrest Parks, with 91 parks in the UK alone and 16,000 residents. His business has capitalized on the staycation boom, and his rapidly expanding empire has almost doubled over the last four years.