RISHI Sunak was a beneficiary of tax haven trusts during his time as Chancellor, according to reports.
The Independent have reported that trusts set up in the British Virgin Islands and Cayman Islands were set up to help manage the tax affairs of Akshata Murty, Sunak’s wife, and note Sunak as a beneficiary in 2020. Sunak became Chancellor in February 2020 and had previously been chief secretary to the Treasury from 2019.
The Independent claim they have seen documents that identify links between trusts and Murty, her family and companies linked to their businesses - with Sunak being listed as a beneficiary in a number of them.
Labour’s shadow chief treasury secretary, Pat McFadden, said Sunak being named as a beneficiary in the documents is “extremely serious”.
He said: “We need urgent answers from the chancellor as to why he has been linked to a tax haven. We need full transparency about this and the other stories about the chancellor emerging over the past 24 hours.”
This follows the announcement that Murty had been using non-domicile status to avoid paying UK tax on foreign income. Murty paid an annual £30,000 fee to HMRC rather than pay tax on the estimated £11.5 million in annual dividends from her stake in the Indian-based company Infosys
However, since then Murty has said that she will end her non-dom status as she doesn’t want to be a "distraction for my husband or to affect my family”.
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Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Saturday, Labour shadow transport secretary Louise Haigh said that while the arrangement was legal, Sunak had failed to be transparent about his family’s tax status at a time when he was raising taxes for millions of people.
“The Chancellor has not been transparent. He has come out on a number of occasions to try and muddy the waters around this and to obfuscate,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“It is clear that was legal. I think the question many people will be asking is whether it was ethical and whether it was right that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whilst piling on 15 separate tax rises to the British public, was benefiting from a tax scheme that allowed his household to pay significantly less to the tune of potentially tens of millions of pounds less.”
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