UK PM Sunak publishes tax returns

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak published his personal tax returns over three financial years to 2022, after repeated calls for transparency about his finances.

The returns show that the privately wealthy former investment banker paid a total of £1,053,060 ($1,288,787) in tax, including £432,493 last year.

Taking income and capital gains into account, he earned £4.7 million in total in the period. Of that, £1.9 million came last year.

Sunak has been under pressure to publish his tax returns, particularly since it emerged that his wife, Akshata Murty, enjoyed “non-dom” status when he was finance minister.

That meant she did not pay UK tax on dividends from her stake in her billionaire Indian father’s Infosys software company. After a row, she pledged to pay the amount due on her worldwide income.

The main opposition Labour party has sought to use the family’s wealth as evidence that the prime minister is out of touch with ordinary people, particularly during a cost-of-living crisis.

The Guardian earlier this month reported that he had a heated private swimming pool at his constituency home in northern England, at a time many voters were struggling with high energy prices.

The Sunday Times Rich List estimates that the couple has a net worth of £730 million — more than head of state King Charles III.

Sunak, 42, is the son of immigrants from India and east Africa, who went to a top private school and the University of Oxford.

He worked at investment management company Goldman Sachs and two hedge funds before entering politics.

As a minister, he has placed his investments in a non-transparent “blind trust.”

Labour questioned the timing of the release of the returns, which came as Sunak’s former boss Boris Johnson was questioned about whether he lied to parliament about lockdown-breaking parties.

MPs also voted Wednesday on a key aspect of Sunak’s deal with the European Union to unlock political paralysis in Northern Ireland.