Farage under increasing pressure to sack Tice over allegations he failed to pay tax

Reform Britain leader Nigel Farage is coming under increasing pressure to sack his deputy leader, Richard Tice, amid anger over his tax affairs.

Mr Tice, the party’s business spokesman and co-owner of the party with Mr Farage, is accused of failing to pay tens of thousands of pounds in tax on dividends paid to himself and his offshore trust.

allegations Sunday Times He claimed he received “overpayments of at least £91,000” as a result of the failure.

Labor Treasurer Torsten Bell said: “We already knew that Richard Tice was aggressively avoiding tax.

“We are now told that his company is not paying the tax that is legally due. For someone who is allegedly in the public service, he is going to extreme lengths to avoid paying his fair share of utilities.”

Tax expert Dan Neidle said Mr. Tice’s “company broke the law.”

He continued: “There was no opportunity for different people to choose to pay taxes months later than they were due. The law is the law. It is not optional.”

He noted: “Mr Tice owns a property company called Quidnet REIT. He paid dividends of £600,000 to Tice and his trust from 2020 to 2022. Quidnet should have paid £120,000 in tax on these dividends. It did not.”

“REITs and their investors cannot choose how and when the tax is paid. The law required the REIT to pay tax immediately on its dividends, rather than waiting up to 21 months for its shareholders to file and pay tax. The tax is still due.”

The allegations echo the scandal that saw Angela Rayner resign as deputy prime minister after failing to pay nearly £30,000 in stamp duty on a new flat in Brighton amid confusion over her son’s trust.

The row led to a major public row with Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey, who said in X that Mr Tice’s actions were “completely morally indefensible”.

He added: “Farage must sack Richard Tice immediately.”

But Mr Tice claimed the allegations were “defamatory” and highlighted Sir Ed as the post office minister who allowed postmasters to be wrongfully prosecuted and then received £275,000 from the law firm that pressured them to be wrongfully imprisoned.

The Reform leadership continued to stand by Mr. Tice, with the party’s home affairs spokesman, Zia Yusuf, defending him on the broadcast tour on Sunday.

Mr Yusuf claimed the tax avoidance allegations were “non-story”.

“Richard Tice committed neither tax evasion nor tax avoidance; this would be the first point I would emphasize.

“And the second point I want to make is that it is clear to me that, of course, I am not a tax lawyer, but it is clear to me that in this case any tax not paid or underpaid by the company paying the dividend would have been overpaid by Richard himself in the form of income tax.

“So HMRC appear to have come to the same conclusion.”

Asked about another controversy involving a competition to pay people’s energy bills, which is being investigated by police, he said: “I think people who make a report like this should be ashamed Trevor, look this was only a few weeks ago.

“During the Gorton and Denton parliamentary elections, you know, people had reported reform to the police for some crackdown on a leaflet.

“And you know, the police looked at it and said it was bullshit and threw it away.”