Nigel Farage lashed out at a reporter and challenged her to give him a “lecture” on tax law when asked about Richard Tice’s tax affairs at a press conference
Nigel Farage lashed out at a reporter and challenged her to give him a “lecture” on tax law when asked about Richard Tice’s tax affairs at a press conference.
The Reform UK leader insisted his deputy Mr Tice had paid the correct tax, suggesting that if anything his colleague “might have slightly overpaid tax”.
Mr Tice, who is Reform’s business, trade and energy spokesman, is facing demands to “urgently explain” himself over allegations his company broke the law by failing to pay more than £90,000 in tax. It relates to the firm’s rare legal status as a REIT (a real estate investment trust).
At a press conference this morning, a reporter from Channel 4 News asked Mr Farage why he doesn’t know the exact amount Mr Tice has paid back.
A tetchy Mr Tice hit back: “Do give me a lecture on REITs and how they work, would you? I mean, while we’re here, give us the benefit of your knowledge on this. I’d be thrilled.”
READ MORE: Richard Tice faces demand to ‘urgently explain’ himself over £91k tax claim
When she said she wasn’t an expert, he replied: “Nor am I, thank you.” Asked again how much Mr Tice tax had repaid, Mr Farage told her: “If our biggest critic is Labour activist Dan Neidle – and he is a tax expert, he is, he’s good at it – if our biggest critic says that Richard Tice has not evaded or avoided tax, has paid the full amount, and actually, maybe even a little bit more the full amount, then I’m satisfied with that.”
Mr Neidle on Saturday wrote on social media that the situation was not tax evasion or tax avoidance but said Mr Tice’s property investment firm Quidnet REIT Ltd “mistakenly failed to pay the tax required by law, and is now required to pay it”.
He added to the Sunday Times: “The rules are fairly simple and understood by everyone in the property world. Failure to pay the tax looks careless.”
Mr Tice reportedly failed to pay a required levy on dividends before they were channelled to him and his offshore trust. He received at least £91,000 in excess payments because of the alleged failure, according to the Sunday Times.
REITs are exempt from paying corporation tax during a grace period. Firms with the status instead issue a portion of a company’s earnings to shareholders, who are then taxed individually.
The Times said the law requires REITs to deduct a proportion of dividends – known as withholding tax – before making payments to shareholders. This is then charged at the 20% basic rate of income tax.
Mr Tice’s firm allegedly broke this law by failing to hold back tax before paying shareholders on at least three occasions between 2020-2021. The Sunday Times claimed that overall Mr Tice did not deduct tax from dividends, which were worth around £456,000, leading to a tax shortfall of around £91,200.
Mr Tice insisted he has “paid all tax at the highest rate on all dividends received. HMRC has been paid in full”.
Labour chair Anna Turley has written to HMRC urging them to investigate Mr Tice’s tax affairs. She said: “Tice has called for others to resign over tax errors, but now seems to think that the rules don’t apply to him. He has no credibility at all: he’s not on the side of working people, he’s just in it for himself.”
