Reform UK leader Nigel Farage is coming under increasing pressure to sack his deputy leader Richard Tice amid fury over his tax affairs.
Mr Tice, who is the party’s business spokesperson and jointly owns it with Mr Farage, has been accused of failing to pay tens of thousands of pounds in tax on dividends that were paid to him and his offshore trust.
Allegations in The Sunday Times suggested that he received “at least £91,000 in excess payments” as a result of the failure.
Labour Treasury minister Torsten Bell said: “We already knew Richard Tice aggressively avoided tax.
“Now we’re told his company just plain failed to pay tax that was legally due. For someone supposedly in public service he goes to extreme lengths to avoid paying his fair share towards public services.”
Tax expert Dan Neidle said that Mr Tice’s “company broke the law”.
He went on: “There was no ability to choose for different people to pay tax, months later than it should be paid. The law is the law. It’s not optional.”
He noted: “Mr Tice, owns a property company, Quidnet Reit [real estate investment trust]. From 2020 to 2022, it paid Tice and his trust £600k in dividends. Quidnet should have paid £120k of tax on those dividends. It didn’t.
“Reits and their investors don’t get to choose how and when tax is paid. The law required that the Reit pay tax on its dividends immediately, rather than waiting up to 21 months until its shareholders file and pay tax. The tax is still due.”
The allegations have echoes of the scandal which forced Angela Rayner to quit as deputy prime minister over failing to pay around £30,000 in stamp duty on a new flat in Brighton because of confusion over her son’s trust.
The row led to a very public spat with Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey, who said on X that Mr Tice’s actions were “morally completely indefensible”.
He added: “Farage should sack Richard Tice immediately.”
But Mr Tice claimed that the allegations were “a smear” and highlighted how Sir Ed had been the post office minister who had allowed postmasters to be wrongly prosecuted and subsequently took £275,000 from the legal firm which pushed for their wrongful imprisonment.
The Reform leadership continued to stand by Mr Tice with the party’s homes affairs spokesperson Zia Yusuf defending him on the Sunday broadcast round.
Mr Yusuf claimed the allegations on avoiding tax were “a non-story”.
“Richard Tice has not committed tax evasion nor tax avoidance, that would be the first point I make.
“And the second point I would make is that what’s also seems clear to me, and I’m obviously not a tax lawyer, but it is clear to me that any tax that would have not been paid or underpaid by the company paying the dividend in this case would have been overpaid by Richard himself in the form of income tax.”
Asked about another controversy around a Reform competition to pay people’s energy bills, which is being reviewed by the police, he said: “I think the people making such a report should be embarrassed, look it was only a few weeks ago, remember, during the Gorton and Denton parliamentary by-election that, you know, people reported Reform to the police for some imprint on a leaflet.
“And, you know, the police looked at it and said, this is nonsense, threw it out.”