Singer Blunt Follows Trail to Switzerland

The singer James Blunt is planning to move to the exclusive Swiss resort of Verbier, local officials confirmed last night, just as Switzerland debates whether to curb the tax incentives that have brought an influx of rock stars to its Alpine villages.

Blunt, 32, a former tank commander in the British army who reportedly earned £5m with his 11-times platinum album Back to Bedlam, has visited the mountain village since childhood. He joins other celebrities including Diana Ross.

The Verbier tourism director, Patrick Meisseiller, confirmed a report in Le Matin that Blunt had registered with the tax office. He described the singer's arrival as a "good thing for Switzerland", saying he was to inaugurate a new chairlift that would carry a plaque with his name.

Mr Meisseiller would not say whether preferential tax treatment was on offer, saying: "That's a private matter." Blunt's press agent declined to say whether he was leaving Britain because of tax.

The ageing French "Elvis", Johnny Hallyday, recently sparked a cross-border political slanging match over celebrity tax refugees when he moved to nearby Gstaad, complaining that in France "70% of everything I earn goes to taxes".

About 3,700 foreign millionaires and billionaires live in Switzerland, where each canton sets its own tax rates and can cut special deals with foreigners allowing them to pay only a fraction of what they would pay elsewhere. Residents include Phil Collins, Tina Turner, Michael Schumacher and Boris Becker. One of the richest foreign residents is Ingvar Kamprad, 80, founder of the furniture chain Ikea.

This month a French Socialist MP, Arnaud Montebourg, appealed to the EU to end the cantons' tax "banditry". The new Swiss finance minister, Doris Leuthard, criticised tax incentives to foreigners as discriminating against locals, pointing out that the Swiss tennis player Roger Federer could not benefit.

But the government remains in favour of the system, as Switzerland fights to attract foreigners tempted by favourable tax rates in Ireland, Luxembourg, eastern Europe and Britain, where London's tax incentives for billionaires from overseas have tempted Swiss nationals.

France is particularly sensitive to the drain of its rich citizens and companies across the border to Switzerland as politicians debate tax levels in the run-up to the spring presidential election.

The Socialist presidential candidate, Ségolène Royal, yesterday published a list of her assets, revealing she paid wealth tax in France on her share of family property which is worth €355,800 (£233,700), saying she had nothing to hide.