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Insider UK
Insider UK
Politics
Neil Pooran & Peter A Walker

Sturgeon publishes personal tax returns

Nicola Sturgeon has published her tax returns for the years dating back to 2014, as she called for other party leaders to follow suit.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said he will publish his own tax returns “shortly”.

The First Minister's tax documents, which were released by the Scottish National Party, list a total annual pay of £140,496.

Since April 2009, Scottish ministers have frozen their pay and declined to accept their full salary entitlement, with the remainder going towards public spending.

The SNP said this meant the First Minister will forgo more than £27,000 of her salary in the current financial year.

Sturgeon said: “I previously committed to being open and transparent to the people of Scotland about my own earnings - today’s publication makes good on that commitment.

“These documents show clearly that my sole source of income is my job as First Minister – the office which I have the immense privilege of holding.

“I hope other party leaders, including the Prime Minister, will follow suit in an effort to promote transparency in public office.”

At a press conference in Edinburgh, she was asked about her husband Peter Murrell’s £100,000 loan to the SNP and whether it was entirely his money.

In December, it emerged that Murrell, who is the party’s chief executive, made the loan in June 2021.

She said: “The resources that he lent the party were resources that belonged to him.”

The First Minister also said she would “anticipate and expect” that Sunak will publish his own tax return.

Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross later published his tax return for the year 2021-22, which showed he earned £72,821 as the MP for Moray.

The document also revealed he received £17,223 for his role as a Highlands and Islands MSP.

MSPs who hold a “dual mandate” by also having a seat at Westminster only receive a third of the full MSP salary – with the amount Ross received slightly less than that as he was not elected to Holyrood till May of 2021, just over a month after the tax year began in April.

He did not earn any money as an assistant referee that year, as an injury prevented him officiating at any matches.

Meanwhile, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alexander Cole-Hamilton's tax return from 2021-22 showed that he received £57,378 as an MSP.

He also received a property income of £2,820 and had property expenses of £696.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has yet to respond at time of writing.

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