Rishi's wife does not pay tax (millions!!) on dividends!

[FlowerArranger]

From today's Guardian :

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 Murthy, 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.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/apr/06/rishi-sunaks-wife-claims-non-domicile-status?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Anyone as outraged by this as I am? I mean what the actual fuck?

I love the fact that he came out declaring her dedication to living in India and his dedication to living in the UK but now it turns out that up until very recently they had both pledged to live in the US. (And that's not counting all the Mauritian letterbox company stuff.) They're basically committed to whichever country will allow them to avoid the most tax.

I think they and their interests are just global. I don’t think we have many candidates who are savvy enough to be Chancellor of the Exchequer at least he must have a good grasp on finance.

@Malibuismysecrethome

I think they and their interests are just global. I don’t think we have many candidates who are savvy enough to be Chancellor of the Exchequer at least he must have a good grasp on finance.

Indeed - to serve their own interests. Greed greed greed.

@mrshoho

Responding to the chancellor's claims that Labour was unfairly smearing his wife, a Labour source told the BBC: "The chancellor would do better to look a little closer to home.

"It's clear that No 10 are the ones briefing against Rishi Sunak and after his failure to tackle the cost of living crisis you can understand why."

Gets more interesting.

Very interesting.

@Fretfulmum

No one begrudges any other wealthy person or MP for paying taxes in other countries. Look at Zac Goldsmith- he doesn’t even pay UK taxes but no one says anything about him. Oh wait, he’s white and male

Nice try but Goldsmith gave up his non dom status shortly before entering politics in an elected capacity.

Not suggesting he is morally any better but his PR team were certainly more savvy than Sunak's.

Or perhaps they didn't have quite the overwhelming sense of entitlement associated with the super rich like Murty and Sunak.

It is outrageous. This happens a lot. The current system is set up to keep the rich, rich. Rishi won’t change it will he?

I’m also not sure when we lost the idea that greed is a quality we aim to avoid. It seems almost to be encouraged (unless you are one of the mass workers paid minimum wage when you are supposed to put up and shut up).

The company she makes her money from didn’t pull out of Russia either.

I’m pretty dismayed by the lack of morality in human life here in the last few years. Especially in politics.

@Ginajo

The Sunaks absolutely do live in Downing St.

Ok I apologise I had it on good authority that they were still using their other London home but perhaps that was while they were redecorating

The current system is set up to keep the rich, rich - help the rich get richer might be more accurate. Wealth hasn't concentrated in the 0.01% in relative and absolute terms over the last 12 years by accident.

But don't worry, wealth trickles down, like the feeling of warm water on your shoulder when you think it's just rained.

But don't worry, wealth trickles down, like the feeling of warm water on your shoulder when you think it's just rained

Or someone has just pissed on you from a great height...

Being domiciled in the US while being the actual Chancellor of the Exchequer doesn't suggest he has confidence in the UK economy. It's laughable. I'm now interested in his investment decisions while working in hedge funds.

Downing street is definitely briefing against him. Following when the Beeb wrote about him as 'Dishy Rishi' and drew him as superman and when he gave us all a Nando's discount so we could all go out to eat on the cheap and catch covid in the process. Number 10 doesn't like the good press he's getting.

They have more money than anyone could piss away in a lifetime. So greedy.

@jcyclops

Non-dom status is not "just for the rich".

A Polish EU citizen has lived here for 4 years working in the building trade. By no means could he be described as rich. After a year he was joined by his wife and kids. He still owns his original building business in Poland (now run by his brother) from which he receives profits, and owns his house in Poland that he rents out. This money earned in Poland stays there and is not subject to UK tax due to his non-dom status.

Not strictly true. He’d have to claim non-dom status which costs £30k a year. I doubt many Polish builders do. As for paying no tax on his Polish income, that depends on the treaty between the two countries. The most probable outcome is that he pays the difference between the foreign and UK rates, if he declares it at all.

Well I never. She's had a change of plan and will now pay uk tax on her overseas income. Will it ne backdated I wonder? She didn't want her affairs to be a distraction for her husband!

Backdated one year.

Also:

The Guardian has also discovered the Treasury last week brought in a new low tax scheme that is partly designed to benefit some wealthy non-dom investors – just days before Sunak’s national insurance rise hit millions of working people at the height of a cost of living crisis.

I am so so so sick of this. I do feel we need to revolt.

"jcyclops
Non-dom status is not "just for the rich".

A Polish EU citizen has lived here for 4 years working in the building trade. By no means could he be described as rich. After a year he was joined by his wife and kids. He still owns his original building business in Poland (now run by his brother) from which he receives profits, and owns his house in Poland that he rents out. This money earned in Poland stays there and is not subject to UK tax due to his non-dom status.
Not strictly true. He’d have to claim non-dom status which costs £30k a year. I doubt many Polish builders do.
As for paying no tax on his Polish income, that depends on the treaty between the two countries. The most probable outcome is that he pays the difference between the foreign and UK rates, if he declares it at all."

The remittance basis charge only kicks in though if resident for 7 out of the previous 9 tax years. So in the example about the polish builder where they have been resident for 4 years they can claim remittance basis and not pay the charge. They will check each year which is more beneficial and even losing personal allowance sometimes it's more beneficial to claim remittance basis.

After they have been here 7 out of the last 9 years then they will need to factor in remittance basis charge.

Bloody hell, several years to decide if a country is deemed worthy to be lived in and then a decision in a mere few days.

Fuck me, fuck this shit. Are we all supposed to bow and scrape and be grateful?
If the UK wasn't good enough for your family to pay tax in yesterday then I really don't want to be deemed good enough today

They really are taking the piss. Having to be embarrassed into doing the right thing.

I don't think for Sunak this is going to fix things. It seems likely now that they probably were not paying tax in India on the overseas income as was alluded to by their spokesperson.

I don't think we are too far off from a revolt in the UK. Not just because of this. We're generally an apathetic nation who love to moan but push enough people and it could happen. We need a change in government ASAP. The government are crafty though hiking NI in April and then just as people are at boiling point reducing it in July.

I don't think we are too far off from a revolt in the UK.
As long as the MSM and the BBC continue to favour the government and filter what news the general public see I'm afraid we are a long way from a revolt. It's always someone else's fault - War in Ukraine, Covid, mistreatment by the EU bla bla.

Wow, knives are really out for Rishi.

Can't you just hate Sunak for being a Tory who endorses Tory policies, why must PP distort & make shit up?

Sunak isn't tax domiciled in USA -- USA doesn't have the concept of being domiciled for tax obligation purposes. USA does have foreign-earned income exclusions IF you prove you have foreign residence 90% of the year. That is as good as it gets, and only if you testify to living outside USA.

A USA green card 'allows' residence, it's not the same as being resident. I'm sure he uses the foreign-residence allowance just like I do on his income earned in UK/abroad. That's a legal declaration that he lives outside USA.

With GC-holder-status comes the liability of declaring his income worldwide and paying tax on it if above certain thresholds. It's the same filing requirement if Sunak merely has a bank account in USA, btw. Given the inherent security of MP's jobs & the difficulties of securing green cards, I can perfectly understand him keeping that option open.

iirc, Johnson renounced because of capital gains payments to be avoided in future when he next sold his primary residence. There is minimal US federal exemption on capital gains taxes from sale of primary residence. It was nothing to do with FATCA. FATCA is not that hard a form to file, tbh, it's paperwork rather than extra tax anyway. Isn't Johnson cash-strapped ? He might not have been liable to file FATCA, if he only has debts, shares in businesses but little cash.

Apparently, after being pressed by journalists, the White House is going investigate if any laws have been broken. I imagine things will be oiled over.

Loving Johnson telling us that of COURSE he isn't briefing against Sunak, he has his full support, whilst claiming he knew nothing about the non-dom issue.

Because he's never been known to tell a lie, has he?

^ I agree and his tax affairs were complicated he renounced his US citizenship before becoming PM. What about when he was an MP and Mayor of London?

She doesn’t pay tax anywhere. India allows rich people to pay tax offshore in Mauritius and Mauritians taxes are minuscule.

By the way to those defending ‘Dishi Rishi’ who had so little faith in the U.K. that he held American citizenship until very recently (so essentially paid his tax payer funded wages to the USA) please see below:

He has voted 23 a reduction in welfare benefits, he voted against feeding hungry children, he pushed to cut the uplift in UC.(none against)
He voted 8 times- 0 against paying benefits to the long term disabled (none against)
He's voted 7 times to reduce capital gains tax (none against)
He's voted 8 times against more tax for banks (none against)
He's voted 9 times against increasing corporation tax (none against)
He's voted 5 times against laws to promote equality and human rights (none against)

Can’t believe people line up to vote for people like this. They’d steal food out of your kids mouths.

@Malibuismysecrethome

I think they and their interests are just global. I don’t think we have many candidates who are savvy enough to be Chancellor of the Exchequer at least he must have a good grasp on finance.

Oh god, this old chestnut