Labour calls for tax investigation into Reform's Tice

The Labour Party has asked His Majesty's Revenue and Customs to investigate the tax affairs of Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice.

Party chair Anna Turley wrote to the tax authority after the Sunday Times reported Tice had "avoided nearly £600,000 in corporation tax" through his property company.

Turley said the article presented a "deeply troubling case which needs to be investigated with the utmost urgency".

At a press conference in Westminster on Monday, Tice said Quidnet Reit Ltd was "a UK company paying UK tax in accordance with UK laws", adding there was no "obligation" to pay the maximum tax required and suggested few people would likely take such a decision.

Tax avoidance is different to tax evasion, which is a criminal offence.

The newspaper claimed Tice had avoided paying corporation tax on the company's "multimillion-pound profits for most of 2018 to 2021" through gaining "rare legal status" for it as a real estate investment trust (Reit).

The status gives firms a grace period in which they are exempt from corporation tax, according to the paper, and instead issue a portion of the company's earnings to shareholders who are taxed individually.

Tice reportedly channelled these dividends into structures including an offshore trust and "a string of dormant businesses", which "reduced his exposure to tax".

The paper also claimed Quidnet "did not pass the technical tests for Reit status at the time and never did", and had gained the status instead through a "legal quirk".

In a letter to HMRC on Sunday - which oversees firms with Reit status - Labour chair Turley said "several important questions remain unanswered".

She posed a range of questions related both to Quidnet and HMRC's dealings with the firm, including whether Tice "and companies linked to him have paid all the tax they owe".

Speaking at the press conference, Tice asked journalists: "How many friends of yours would voluntarily choose to pay more tax than they are legally obliged to do?

"The idea that morally, we have got to pay the maximum tax we possibly can - therein lies the road to ruin for the UK as an economy."

The Reform UK MP said voters appreciated "successful people with a track record negotiating hard on behalf of taxpayers".

Pressed on whether he would encourage everyone in the UK to pay as little tax as possible, he told PA: "Yes, within the legal limit. That is what you should do.

"Don't morally or voluntarily give more tax to incompetent, wasteful hard-left, socialist governments to waste on your behalf."

Tice has written to Labour about a company, Labour Party Properties Ltd, that he said had not paid corporation tax since 2000.

Labour Party Properties is a company that buys, sells and lets its own or leased real estate, according to the Companies House filing, where its accounts are six months overdue.

In his open letter to Turley, asking why the company appeared to have received more than £30m in rental income, Tice said "it appears that no corporation tax has been paid during this period".

"Given the Labour Party's consistent and very public stance on tax fairness, transparency, and the responsibility of businesses to contribute their fair share, this raises a number of questions which I believe warrant a clear explanation," he said.

Tice has asked the party to explain why no corporation tax has been paid, specify which "reliefs, exemptions, or accounting treatments" have been applied and whether that is "consistent with the principles it advocates for the wider business community".

Responding to Reform's press conference, Turley did not address the allegations about Labour Party Properties Ltd, but said the Reform MP needed to "come clean with the British people as to why he's gone to such extreme lengths to avoid paying £600,000 in tax".

It is understood the latest accounts for Labour Party Properties Ltd are to be finalised shortly. The BBC was told all tax liabilities are accounted for in accordance with the rules.

A Labour Party spokesperson said: "Richard Tice is brazenly attempting to deflect from his own tax affairs by slinging mud and hoping something will stick.

"He needs to explain to the British people why he has gone to such extreme lengths to avoid paying almost three quarters of a million pounds in tax."