Arron Banks: I’ll move firm to pay tax in UK
BREXIT donor Arron Banks has registered a firm to pay tax in the UK after coming under fire for his opaque finances.
The self-made millionaire’s insurance business, which owns the Go Skippy car cover brand, is currently based on the Isle of Man.
Documents filed at Companies House show that the offshore firm, ICS Risk Solutions, has registered a ‘UK establishment of an overseas company’.
Banks confirmed the move to The Mail on Sunday last night and said it came ahead of a possible flotation of his business, which has more than 500,000 UK car insurance customers.
He said: ‘We are moving the UK establishment for the purpose of paying UK tax on the business in readiness for corporate developments.’
Banks previously said he hoped to achieve a stock market listing for Bristol-based subsidiary Eldon Insurance by the start of this year.
Going public would expose his fortune to greater public scrutiny. He is already under fire from the Electoral Commission, which is investigating whether Banks was the ‘true source’ of his £8.4million Brexit donations via his Leave.EU campaign.
Estimates of his fortune range from £100million to £250 million.
Separately, Companies House is looking into Eldon Insurance, after receiving a complaint about its 2015 accounts.
The complaint, filed in May, said Eldon had ‘claimed exemption from preparing group accounts but not complied with... the requirements to file a copy of their parent company’s accounts’. At the latest count for the year to December 2016, Eldon posted a £165,000 pre-tax profit on £47.3 million turnover. Accounts for offshore parent company ICS are not publicly available. Banks previously said he would comply with Companies House requirements.