Andrea Leadsom under pressure to match Theresa May’s transparency after only publishing single year tax return
Tory leadership rival Theresa May published four years of tax returns just days ago
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Your support makes all the difference.Conservative Party leadership candidate Andrea Leadsom is under pressure to match competitor Theresa May’s level of transparency, after the former published just a single year tax return.
Declaring an income of nearly £85,000 in 2015, Ms Leadsom paid around £22,000 in tax, compared with more than £40,000 paid that year by frontrunner Ms May.
A surprise contender to be the next prime minister, the MP for South Northamptonshire published one year of tax information, just days after rival Theresa May released four years of returns.
Michael Gove, the Justice Secretary, said all Tory leadership candidates should be “transparent about their income”, but Ms Leadsom had refused to publish the information unless she reached the final two of the Tory leadership battle.
Ms Leadsom’s tax return, calculated by Isis Accountants, shows she was due to pay an overall tax rate of 27 per cent, on income of £83,930 – more than three times the average UK salary.
Calculated by Isis Accountants, the return shows Ms Leadsom has an income of £76,597, dividends and tax credits of £2,324 and interest income of £5,009.
She paid £6,544 of tax on £32,720 at the 20 per cent basic rate, £755.30 on her dividends at the higher rate of 32.5 per cent, and £15,554.40 on £38,886 at the 40 per cent higher rate of tax. She also received a £232.40 discount in tax credits on her dividend income.
Ms Leadsom earned £9,270 in capital gains but did not incur any tax on that income because it fell within HMRC’s tax-free limit for capital gains.
She previously faced questions about her financial affairs, after using offshore bank accounts as part of a property business she ran with her husband.
The energy minister, who was a City banker and fund manager before entering politics, started a buy-to-let company called Bandal Limited with her husband in 2003.
The company invested £1m into three houses in Oxford with mortgages from the Jersey branch of Kleinwort Benson, a private bank specialising in wealthy clients.
Ms Leadsom later used an account at Kleinwort Benson (Channel Islands) Ltd, based in Jersey, to deal with charges before transferring shares to her two children to be held in trust.
She later transferred the offshore charges to the UK before becoming a Treasury minister and subsequently stepping down as the director of her buy-to-let business, handing it over to her son instead.
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