Prime minister Rishi Sunak has been accused of picking an opportune moment to publish his long-awaited tax affairs, with yesterday’s news agenda dominated by Boris Johnson’s privileges committee grilling and a vote on his new Brexit deal for Northern Ireland.
Mr Sunak’s tax affairs, released at around 4 pm yesterday, showed that the prime minister made just over £1 million in income and £3.7 million in capital gains between 2019-20 and 2021-22
Over this period, he paid just over £1 million in UK tax.
Mr Sunak promised last July to publish his tax affairs if he became party leader, which eventually came to pass in October. Since then, the prime minister has held off on publishing his accounts.
The documents were published just over half an hour before the end of Mr Johnson’s time before the privileges committee, which is investigating whether he misled parliament.
The day’s news agenda was also dominated by a House of Commons vote on the “Stormont brake” aspect of the Windsor Framework, the prime minister’s solution to the NI Protocol impasse. The brake ultimately passed by 515 to 29 after a 90-minute debate.
Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner took to twitter to describe her dismay at the prime minister’s timing. She tweeted: “Wonder why he’s chosen today?”.
This morning she added: “Rishi Sunak’s much delayed return reveal a Tory tax system where the PM pays a far lower tax rate than working people – who face the highest tax burden in 70 years.
“His latest handout to the richest 1% shows you exactly who he puts first”.
The Liberal Democrats’ cabinet office spokesperson Christine Jardine said: “After months of promising to release his tax returns, I don’t understand why Rishi Sunak has snuck them out whilst the world is distracted with Boris Johnson’s partygate grilling.
“People will be much more concerned today about the staggering tax hikes Rishi Sunak has imposed on them.
“The blunt truth is that we should judge politicians on their actions, not their wealth. Rishi Sunak will be remembered as the tax-hiking Prime Minister and no Boris Johnson distraction will stop that”.
Conservative party chairman Greg Hands defended Sunak’s high tax bill. When it was put to him on ITV’s Peston that the amount the prime minister paid in tax — £432,500 in 2021/22 — was about 13 times what most people earn, he said: “We want to have, in this country, wealthy people paying a lot of tax.
“So, I think we should be proud of the fact that people are paying tax in this country and proud of the fact they’re financing our excellent public services”.
Speaking this morning to Sky News, shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper confirmed that under a Labour government the prime minister, deputy prime minister and shadow chancellor would all publish their tax affairs.
She said: “The reason we know he’s come to this point in the first place was because of the row about the ‘non-dom’ status in his family and real concern that he should be making sure that his household is also abiding by the same tax rules as everybody else across the country”.
She added: “The approach that we’ll take is that [Sir Keir Starmer], as the leader of the opposition, would declare his tax returns and also that in government, the Labour Prime Minister, deputy prime Minister and chancellor would do so. Because I think that’s about saying those who are involved in making decisions about tax — making those crucial decisions about tax — should be transparent about their own situation”.
