The Conservative leadership candidate Andrea Leadsom has published her tax return for last year and declared an income of nearly £85,000.
The surprise contender to be the next prime minister published one year of tax information, days after rival Theresa May released four years of tax returns.
Leadsom had refused to publish the information unless she reached the final two of the Tory leadership battle. Her tax return, released on Sunday afternoon, shows that she was due to pay tax of £22,621 on income of £83,930 – an overall tax rate of 27%.
The tax return, calculated by Isis Accountants, shows that Leadsom has an income of £76,597, dividends and tax credits of £2,324 and interest income of £5,009.
She paid £6,544 of tax on £32,720 at the 20% basic rate, £755.30 on her dividends at the higher rate of 32.5%, and £15,554.40 on £38,886 at the 40% higher rate of tax. She also received a £232.40 discount in tax credits on her dividend income.
Leadsom earned £9,270 in capital gains but did not incur any tax on that income because it fell within HMRC’s tax-free limit for capital gains.
Publication of her tax return, albeit for one year only, follows mounting pressure on Conservative leadership candidates to be transparent about their financial affairs.
Leadsom has already faced questions about her financial affairs, particularly over a property business she owns with her husband.
The energy minister, who was a City banker and fund manager before entering politics, started a buy-to-let company called Bandal Limited with her husband in 2003. The company bought three houses in Oxford with mortgages from the Jersey branch of Kleinwort Benson, a private bank specialising in wealthy clients.
The latest accounts for Bandal show the business owned properties valued by the company at £1.6m and had cash in the bank of £440,000. Two years after Bandal was set up, a quarter of its shares were transferred to an entity called Leadsom Children’s Settlement, which was registered to the family home in Moulsford, Oxfordshire. Many tax experts have pointed out such family settlements are commonly used to avoid inheritance tax.
The market values for the homes may be much higher, however. According to the property website Zoopla, one of the Bandal houses in Surrey is worth an estimated £960,000.
