PM paid over £1m in UK tax since 2019

A statement from Sunak’s accountants on Wednesday showed that his huge investment income and capital gains relate to a single US-based investment fund…reports Asian Lite News

Rishi Sunak has published his long-awaited personal tax returns – revealing his mammoth income from a US-based investment fund outside of his salary at Westminster.

The prime minister has raked in more than £4.7m over the past three years, the summary of his tax returns published for 2019-2020 to 2021-22 have revealed.

He made more than £1.9m last year alone – including £1.6m in capital gains and more than £300,000 in earnings and investment income.

And the PM paid more than £1m in UK tax over the three-year period, including £432,000 last year.

Sunak’s financial affairs have come under intense scrutiny ever since The Independent first revealed his wife Akshata Murty held “non-dom” tax status to avoid UK tax on foreign income.

She later renounced the non-dom status. But it subsequently emerged that Sunak had held a US green card and filed tax returns in America while he was chancellor.

Details of the couple’s fortune, believed to total around £730m, are also politically sensitive following warnings last week that Britons face a lost decade in living standards.

A statement from Sunak’s accountants on Wednesday showed that his huge investment income and capital gains relate to a single US-based investment fund.

This is the investment listed as a “blind management arrangement” on the list of ministers’ interests. Sunak is subject to UK tax on the investment income and gains received from the American fund.

Tax expert Dan Neidle said Sunak had done nothing wrong – but noted how little capital gains are taxed compared with income, saying Mr Sunak paid only 20 per cent tax on the £1.6m made from it last year.

Neidle – who probed ex-chancellor Nadhim Zahawi’s tax affairs – said “there is one interesting point: most of the £400,000 tax bill comes from the blind fund which doesn’t pay cash to him. So how does he pay the tax bill, given it’s so much more than he earns?”

Fellow tax expert Richard Murphy tweeted: “What do Sunak’s tax returns tell us? It is that a wealthy person with income beyond their immediate needs can always re-categorise large parts of that income as capital gains to reduce their tax rate on that part to 20 per cent, which is an insult to all who have to work for a living.”

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