Rishi Sunak and his family potentially saved tens of millions of pounds in taxes through his wife’s non-dom status, Labour said yesterday, as the Chancellor came under renewed pressure.
Akshata Murty, who is worth an estimated £500m, announced on Friday she would pay UK taxes on all her worldwide income as she did not want her financial arrangements to be a “distraction” for her husband.
The move came after Sunak had earlier branded the disclosure of his wife’s tax status as a “smear” by opponents.
Labour and the Liberal Democrats called on Murty, who remains an Indian citizen, to pay the back taxes she saved through not having to pay UK taxes on her overseas income from her family’s software business.
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 come out on a number of occasions to try and muddy the waters around this and to obfuscate,” she said.
It has been estimated that Murty, the daughter of an Indian billionaire, potentially saved up to £20 million in UK tax through the arrangement.
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