London, April 10 : The taxman has been urged to investigate whether UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty broke the terms of her non-dom status by giving her company 4.3 million pounds in interest-free loans, a media report said.
Tax experts said the personal loans to Murty’s venture capital firm, Catamaran Ventures UK, fall into a ‘grey area’ of the rules and last night called for HM Revenue & Customs to investigate, the Daily Mail report said.
The loans could “circumvent” the basis of her non-dom status if they were found to give her “monetary or non-monetary returns”, whether through profits or by exerting influence, it was claimed.
Individuals can give loans to British companies tax-free even if the money comes from earnings abroad that have not been required to pay UK taxes.
Accountants said they can be a way for non-doms to bring money into Britain without having to pay tax on it, Daily Mail reported.
Murty declined to answer questions about the loans, the bulk of which were given in 2019 and 2020.
A spokesman for Sunak’s wife said she had “followed the letter of the law and complied with all rules in her arrangements”.
On Friday, Murty agreed to pay UK tax on her global fortune in a bid to save her husband’s political career.
In a dramatic U-turn, the Indian heiress she would no longer apply to pay tax on a “remittance basis”, which allows non-doms to avoid UK tax on foreign earnings in return for a 30,000 pounds annual fee.
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