Fighting back: Rishi Sunak dismisses wife’s non-dom tax controversy as ‘unpleasant Labour smears’
Chancellor Rishi Sunak has come out fighting for his wife Akshata Murthy, who is facing claims of avoiding tax due to her Indian citizenship and non-dom status.
The Tory heavyweight insisted that his wife, who owns a 0.9 per cent stake in her billionaire father’s firm Infosys, is “100 per cent doing everything this country asks of her” in terms of paying tax.
She has collected almost £55m in dividends from her father’s since living in the UK under non-dom status, The Guardian reported, which could have saved her as much as £20m in taxes.
Non-doms, such as Indian-born Murthy, must pay £30,000 a year if they are a resident for seven of the previous nine tax years, or £60,000 for 12 of the previous 14 tax years. After 15 out of 20 years in the UK, the tax applies to worldwide earnings.
Speaking to the Sun, Sunak said “every single penny” she earns in Britain is taxed, and money gained internationally, is taxed in the country it is earned in, such as India.
He said it would not be “reasonable” for her to give up Indian citizenship and live fully as a UK citizen “because she happens to be married to me”, adding that she is “not her husband’s possession.”
Her arrangement has been criticised by Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, who accused Sunak of “breathtaking hypocrisy” by raising taxes while she reportedly didn’t pay her fair share.
Emily Thornberry, the Labour shadow Attorney General, also weighed into the debate on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. She said Murthy is “somebody who’s been living here for eight years, raising her children here, living at Downing Street in accommodation provided by the taxpayer and aspiring to be the wife of the next Prime Minister, and yet she says that she isn’t a permanent resident of this country.”
She also told Sky News the situation “is a clear conflict of interest”.
While accepting criticism as a politician, Sunak it was “unpleasant” for people to attack his wife, insisting she has not “broken any rules” or “done anything wrong.”
He said Labour is targeting his wife’s arrangement, launching “attempted smears” of Murthy’s father, in order “to get at me” which he branded “awful”.
Conservative MPs, including foreign minister James Cleverly, came out in defence of the Chancellor and his wife, Murthy. He tweeted: “I really thought that we had moved on from the notion that wives are merely an extension of their husbands. Seems that Labour didn’t get the memo.”