UK’S SUNAK MAKES £2M AS BRITS STRUGGLE WITH HIGH COSTS OF LIVING

Mon 12 February 2024:

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s income topped £2mln last year as UK voters struggled with the cost of living crisis.

The prime minister also paid more than half a million pounds in UK tax, The Independent reported.

Sunak’s financial affairs have come under intense scrutiny since The Independent revealed his wife Akshata Murty held “non-dom” tax status to avoid UK tax on foreign income.

She later renounced the controversial status, but it subsequently emerged that Sunak had also held a US green card and filed tax returns in America while he was chancellor.

A summary of his tax affairs shows he paid £508,308 in tax in the financial year 2022-23.

He made nearly £1.8mln through capital gains – up from £1.6mlln in 2021-22 – as well as £293,407 in other interest and dividends.

All his investment income and capital gains came from a US-based investment fund listed as a blind trust, which he benefits form but does not manage.

He also earned his £139,477 salary, a figure that pales in comparison with his investment income.

Rather than a full tax return, No 10 published “a summary” of Sunak’s UK taxable income, capital gains and tax paid over the last tax year as reported to HM Revenue & Customs, prepared by accountancy service Evelyn Partners.

The figures were revealed at the end of a difficult week for the prime minister, with more potential misery set to come with two crunch by-elections next week.

Sunak was criticised for betting £1,000 on Monday that he would deport asylum seekers to Rwanda and has come under fire in recent days for making a trans jibe while the mother of murdered trans teenager Brianna Ghey was in parliament.

Last year Downing Street revealed the prime minister had raked in more than £4.7mln and paid more than £1mln in tax, giving him an effective tax rate of 22 percent. He paid a further $51,648 in US taxes over the same period, as the US charges non-residents for tax due on dividends.

The publication came months after he first pledged to publish his tax return.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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