The Vestey meat brothers left Britain over income tax, set up a Paris trust and bought a peerage

William and Edmund Vestey of Liverpool built a chain from Argentine ranches through Blue Star refrigerated ships to 2,365 British butcher shops. Wartime income tax rose, and Lloyd George refused them an exemption. In 1915 they moved to Buenos Aires. In 1919 William told the Royal Commission on Income Tax that rates should return to pre-war levels. He lost. In 1921 they leased their overseas business to their British company, Union Cold Storage, for £960,000 a year. The rent went to a trust in Paris and reached the family tax free. They moved home. In 1922 William was made Baron Vestey after a payment to Lloyd George's party. King George V wrote in protest. William's company was worth about £90 million at his death. In 1979 the House of Lords ruled in Vestey v IRC that the Revenue could not pick which trust beneficiaries to tax^†. In 1980 the Sunday Times reported that the family paid £10 tax on £2.3 million profit from its Dewhurst butchers. The trust is estimated to have avoided £88 million of tax before the rule changed in 1991. Union International went into receivership in 1995. In 2026 William Vestey, 4th Baron, holds the title. Vestey Holdings, run by the fourth generation, owns food businesses.