UK tax status questions for Sugar after he pays himself £390million
ALAN Sugar was last night under pressure to explain his tax status after he paid himself a £390million dividend and took a leave of absence from the House of lords.
The Apprentice star received the payment from Amshold, a holding company that controls his businesses, including Amsprop, his property business.
The payout is part of a series of arrangements over the past five years. A person familiar with his finances told the Financial Times that these included plans for him to give up residency in the UK. lord Sugar did not respond to requests for comment, but a
‘You’ve got to pay tax’
spokesman said that he paid British taxes.
But the spokesman did not clarify whether he was still a resident of the UK for tax purposes.
Margaret Hodge, the labour MP who is chairman of the parliamentary group on responsible tax, called on lord Sugar to clarify his tax status because of his ‘public role, both as a lawmaker and a business icon and mentor.’
Individuals who are not UK residents do not have to pay tax on dividends from British companies. They also cannot live in the UK for more than 90 days per year.
They are only taxed on income that comes from the UK and not from any generated abroad. nonresident tax status is different from non- dom status, which allows a person exemption from some inheritance tax or taxes on foreign income while also being able to live in the UK full time.
In 2014, lord Sugar, who is worth just over £1billion according to The Sunday Times Rich list, told Radio Times that he did not want to ‘live a life dodging taxmen’. ‘You’ve got to pay tax, it is as simple as that,’ he added.
Other non- resident British entrepreneurs include the Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson, who is based in the British Virgin Islands.
The inventor Sir James Dyson moved his residency to Singapore in 2019 before switching back to the UK in 2021.
Usually, non-residents cannot sit as MPs or in the House of lords and must either step down or seek a leave of absence, which lord Sugar was granted in January.
Amshold’s accounts showed it paid two dividends in 2018 and 2019 that totalled just over £1million. The 2021 payment of £390million would have incurred a tax bill of up to £160million and would be one of the biggest dividends paid to a British tycoon.
The £160million tax bill would also be nearly three times bigger than the £58.6million bill lord Sugar had paid in 2017.
Questions about his tax affairs have been raised previously after one of his companies, Amscruise limited which was registered in Malta in 2015, was mentioned in the Paradise Papers, a cache of more than 13million documents detailing offshore tax schemes leaked in Germany in 2017.
lord Sugar left school at 16 and in 1968 at the age of 21 set up Amstrad with £100 of Post Office savings. The company sold aerials for car radios and other electrical goods out of a van which he had bought for £50. In 1980, Amstrad was listed on the london Stock Exchange and moved into home computers. On July 31, 2007, it was announced that the broadcaster BSkyB had agreed to buy Amstrad for about £125million.
In 1991 lord Sugar bought Tottenham Hostspur and was chairman for nine years. He has been the boss on The Apprentice since its UK launch in 2005.