Why Corbyn can thank the taxpayer
Labour leader condemned PM’s finances while failing to include thousands of pounds from state pension on his tax return
JEREMY CORBYN is facing scrutiny after failing to include thousands of pounds of income from his state pension on his tax return.
Mr Corbyn, who turned 65 in May 2014, receives a state pension of around £6,000 a year but did not include details of the income on the hand-written return he published on Monday. He also failed to declare on the form income from a pension from his time in local government, although Labour insisted it had been taxed at source.
A Labour spokesman said the correct information was provided on a separate sheet of paper, but experts said this was not the correct procedure and was a technical breach.
Accountants yesterday described the omission as “sloppy” and said that even if Mr Corbyn had paid all tax, his failure to declare the income amounted to a technical offence.
It comes after Mr Corbyn was forced to admit that he had been fined £100 for filing his tax return late.
The revelation is embarrassing for the Labour leader, as it comes after he demanded greater transparency from the Prime Minister and the Chancellor.
Danny Cox, of financial services firm Hargreaves Lansdown said: “You are duty-bound to declare all of your tax affairs on your tax return. It is certainly pretty sloppy not to have declared money on your tax return.”
A spokesman for Mr Corbyn initially suggested that the pension was “not taxable”, only to shift position later and say that all taxes due on income had been paid.
The spokesman also said that the Labour leader had submitted details of his pensions to HMRC at the time.
Mr Corbyn yesterday abandoned plans to make all Labour MPs publish their tax returns after a shadow cabinet backlash.
The Labour leader has collected more than £3 million from the state in the past 30 years, according to official records.
He has been paid a total of more than £1.5 million in salary as an MP and he will benefit from a £1.6 million pension pot when he retires. An unnamed senior backbench Labour MP said the scale of his earnings was “remarkable” in the wake of Mr Corbyn’s criticism of Mr Cameron over his own tax affairs.
The MP said: “This seems to indicate that we’re going back to our bad old ways of criticising people for getting on but it’s even more remarkable from someone who has done so well himself over many years out of the public sector, paid for by ordinary working people’s taxes.”
Mr Corbyn has spent almost his entire working life in public office. He was elected in 1983 and has served as an MP for more than 33 years, having previously been a councillor in north London.
As an MP he is entitled to a gold-plated pension of almost £50,000 a year. He also benefits from the state pension and an entitlement from his time at Haringey council in north London. Those in receipt of the basic state pension get just over £6,000 a year.
Tom McPhail, head of pensions re- search at Hargreaves Lansdown, said the scheme for MPs is “one of the most generous available” and would cost £1.6 million to buy on the open market.
Mr Corbyn’s MP’s salary has risen from £15,308 when he first entered Parliament to £74,962. Records also show that Mr Corbyn inherited £37,478 from his mother in 1987, worth the equivalent of nearly £100,000 today.
Mr Corbyn has heavily criticised the Prime Minister over inheritance tax and vowed to review the part of the system which benefits families seeking to pass on their assets to their children.
The Labour leader bought his home in north London in 2007 for £363,000 and this has since risen in value to more than £600,000, according to experts.
He is exempt from national insurance contributions because he is working but of pensionable age. He did not declare the income he received from a lodger he had last year, as this did not meet the threshold for declaration of £4,250, The Daily Telegraph understands. Commenting on Mr Corbyn’s benefits, a Labour spokesman said: “It represents his wages as an MP over the last 30 years, the same as every other MP who has done the same service.
“He’s been elected consistently by the electorate and he has earned what every other MP earns.”