Tice says errors ‘bound to happen’ after reports he failed to pay £100,000 tax
Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice said he is “always happy to put things right” and will pay what is owed “if numbers need rechecking” after reports he failed to pay almost £100,000 in corporation tax.
Mr Tice ran four shell companies which did not pay any tax on profits between 2020 and 2022, The Sunday Times reported.
The newspaper said that the companies were set up purely to receive dividends from Mr Tice’s property investment firm and pass the money to their parent company.
Between March 2020 and May 2022, Tisun Investments Ltd, then transferred £1,113,000 to Reform UK, the newspaper reported.
In a statement on X, Mr Tice said: “In a highly successful career spanning 40 years, I have done business in 12 countries across three continents, and been a director of more than 150 companies.
“I have helped build thousands of homes, creating thousands of jobs and generating hundreds of millions of value for shareholders and investors along with many tens of millions of tax for HMRC.
“I am very proud of this record. Throughout this career I have taken professional tax advice and have always paid everything that I was advised to pay.
“Here’s the reality: tax efficiency is a basic corporate responsibility and duty to shareholders. A long career with multiple businesses is bound to feature some errors.
“Naturally, I am always happy to put things right and if numbers need rechecking, of course, I will pay what is owed – be that more or less.”
‘A minor administrative error’
Last week, Reform UK said the reported failure of Mr Tice’s company to pay tens of thousands of pounds in tax on dividends was “a minor administrative error”.
Mr Tice received at least £91,000 because his property investment company, Quidnet REIT Limited, did not pay the required 20% tax on the dividends before they were issued to him and his offshore trust in Jersey, The Sunday Times reported.
The Boston and Skegness MP said on X that “overall HMRC received the correct amount of tax due” and that any issue was due to “complex tax technicality around dividends to certain shareholder classes in REITs”.
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I don’t remember him being this generous towards others who made a minor administrative error.
Never ending dodgy issues with Reform. Heaven help us if they gain any sort of power in the Senedd. He says he’s proud to have been a director of 150 companies and yet he doesn’t pay a paltry (to him) 100k. Administration error my arse! We all know some sort of tax avoidance when we see one.
Oopsie! It’s just a little bit of tax evasion.
It was only recently Tice was vociferously advocating that everyone should pay as little tax as possible. Interpret that as you will.
Errors? Funny how I seem to pay a larger % of my hard earned to tax and don’t try to avoid it and I live in this country all the time. Whilst Dubai Dick and his Mrs ran away to avoid tax and then found out that UAE ain’t all that safe. Tice said Rayner should resign. He has made a far bigger, let’s be gracious here, and call it a mistake. The usual suspect press went in hard on Rayners mistake but nothing for this far right grifter. And then it deflects from farage accepting crypto…. Farage its of… Read more »
Tax efficiency = avoidance and/or evasion of taxation.
Good job it wasn’t Angela rRayner, the Mail and Express would have had a seismic explosion.