Evening summary
Here’s a roundup of the key developments from the day:
- Rishi Sunak’s multi-millionaire wife claims non-domicile status, it has emerged, which allows her to save millions of pounds in tax on dividends collected from her family’s IT business empire. Akshata Murty, who receives about £11.5m in annual dividends from her stake in the Indian IT services company Infosys, declares non-dom status, a scheme that allows people to avoid tax on foreign earnings.
- Several leading international tax experts have disputed Akshata Murty’s claim that must be treated as a non-dom for UK tax because she is an Indian citizen, saying tax domicile status is a choice and not connected with a person’s nationality. Those resident in the UK do not have to have a British passport in order to pay British taxes, meaning Murty could have paid UK tax at any time.
- Labour has called for clarity and “complete transparency” over why Rishi Sunak’s wife, Akshata Murty, uses non-domicile status. Keir Starmer, asked about Rishi Sunak’s wife holding non-domiciled status, said: “If it now transpires that his wife has been using schemes to reduce her own tax then I’m afraid that is breathtaking hypocrisy.”
- Rishi Sunak’s wife pays £30,000 a year to secure her non-domiciled tax status, her spokesperson has confirmed and accepted it was possible that Akshata Murty uses the status to take advantage of tax havens for income earned outside the UK. As political pressure increased on the chancellor and his spouse, the spokesperson said Murty had no plans to say where she pays tax on overseas income as that information was not “relevant”.
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The business secretary has admitted that the government’s energy security strategy will do little to help alleviate soaring fuel bills now. Kwasi Kwarteng said that it’s “more of a medium three, four, five year answer” ahead of its reveal later today.
- Keir Starmer said the government’s energy strategy “won’t help those who only last week saw their energy bills go up by hundreds of pounds”. What people wanted from the government was a response that met that challenge, he said.
- Boris Johnson said “nuclear is coming home” as a result of the government’s energy strategy. In a social media video to promote the plan, which was finally released today after repeated delays and cabinet wrangling, the prime minister said: “We’ve got the ambition, we’ve got the plan and we are going to bring clean, affordable secure power to the people for generations to come.”
- Rishi Sunak vetoed plans to ease the cost of living crisis for millions of households after proposals to more than double the energy bill rebate scheme were rejected, according to a document leaked to the i paper.
- The UK government has confirmed that no new nuclear power stations will be built in Scotland, as the Holyrood government – which is opposed to nuclear energy – dismissed new plans to install eight reactors at existing sites as “risky and expensive”. Kwasi Kwarteng confirmed there were “no plans to impose nuclear reactors in Scotland” in future.
- Ed Miliband said the government should ban transgender conversion therapy. He said: “Trans people face incredible barriers and stigma in our society” and that the debate on trans issues was “really awful” for many trans people.
That’s it from me today. Thanks for joining me.
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Updated
Akshata Murty says it’s not ‘relevant’ to say where she pays tax overseas
Rishi Sunak’s wife pays £30,000 a year to secure her non-domiciled tax status, her spokesperson has confirmed and accepted it was possible that Akshata Murty uses the status to take advantage of tax havens for income earned outside the UK.
As political pressure increased on the chancellor and his spouse, the spokesperson said Murty had no plans to say where she pays tax on overseas income as that information was not “relevant”.
The spokesperson declined to elaborate on the initial explanation for Murty’s non-dom tax status – the fact she has Indian citizenship – when this would still mean such a tax arrangement was a choice. They accepted it was possible that Murty’s arrangements meant she minimised her tax using tax havens.
They said no further details would be given, other than to say that Murty abided by all necessary rules.
Labour called for clarity over her tax arrangements, while Keir Starmer said it would be “breathtaking hypocrisy” if she had been reducing her liabilities while the chancellor was raising taxes on others.
There was also concern from some Conservative MPs, with one former minister saying the revelation was particularly unfortunate on the day the national insurance rise came into force.
The perception is, what is the problem? Here is someone worth £3bn who has a different tax arrangement. I’m sure everything is above board but that’s not the point.
Murty receives about £11.5m in annual dividends from a stake in her family’s IT business empire, Infosys, which is headquartered in Bengaluru, India, and listed on the Indian and New York stock exchanges.
Under UK tax laws, Murty’s status as a non-dom means she does not have to pay tax on dividend payments from overseas companies. UK resident taxpayers currently pay up to 39.35% tax on foreign dividend payouts.
It is not known where she pays tax on this overseas income. It previously emerged that Murty is a shareholder in a restaurant business that funnelled investments through the tax haven of Mauritius.
Asked where Murty paid tax on her overseas income, a spokesperson said Murty had no plans to comment on this because it “doesn’t seem relevant”.
Read more from my colleagues Peter Walker, Jessica Elgot, Aubrey Allegretti and Rupert Neate here:
