John Griffin, founder of Addison Lee, has been ordered to pay £20.5m in additional tax after a London tribunal rejected his claim to non-domiciled status. Despite living in England since childhood, Griffin argued his domicile was Ireland based on his emotional attachment to the country, which would have allowed him to avoid UK tax on foreign earnings kept overseas. HMRC challenged this claim, and the tribunal ruled decisively in the tax authority's favour, establishing that England had been his settled home since well before 2013.

Griffin was born to Irish parents in 1942 but moved to London at age nine, where he founded Addison Lee in 1975 and built a substantial business worth £300m when sold to private equity firm Carlyle Group in 2013. The tribunal noted that despite Griffin's stated love of Ireland, he spent only eight nights there in 2015, one of the years he claimed Irish domicile, and had established his family home, professional life and wealth accumulation in Hertfordshire and London. The £20.5m tax bill covers the seven-year period from 2013 to 2020, and the ruling came after the government abolished non-dom status in April 2025.