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Courtesy of the Sunday Times.
Britain’s richest man, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who was knighted less than a year ago for his services to business and investment, has been planning to avoid up to £4bn in tax after switching his home and his fortune to Monaco. The Sunday Times can disclose that the prominent Brexiteer, who built up the chemicals giant Ineos, has been working with the accountant PwC on the tax avoidance plan. This would see him and senior executives Andy Currie and John Reece legally share between £1bn and £10bn tax-free, depriving the Treasury of between £400m and £4bn.
A source with knowledge of the plan described the upper end of the range as “egregious” and said it involved “labyrinthine” structuring. Another source said the plan had not yet been finalised with numbers still “being bounced around” and suggested it would eventually settle towards the bottom of the range. News that Ratcliffe, who last week criticised the EU over its “stupid” green taxes, has been planning to take at least £1bn offshore sparked a huge political row last night. It comes after Sir James Dyson, another vocal Brexit supporter, announced he was moving the headquarters of his vacuum cleaners empire to Singapore.
The Ineos tax planning is understood to have caused alarm at PwC, which has been concerned about the potential for reputational damage if Ratcliffe and his lieutenants decide to aim for a big number.
PwC’s UK management board is understood to have consulted its public interest body, chaired by the former cabinet secretary Lord O’Donnell, as to whether it should refuse to help or even resign from the Ineos account. Sir Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat leader, described Ratcliffe’s planning as “deeply cynical”. He said: “There are thousands of our constituents who are being bankrupted by HM Revenue & Customs action over small-scale tax avoidance while big fish like Ratcliffe are just treating taxation as purely voluntary.
“The idea that we should be dishing out knighthoods to people who have no commitment to this country is rather shameful.” John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, said: “The greed of these super-rich tax avoiders seems to have no bounds. “Don’t they realise that every penny they hide away in their tax havens is a penny not spent on our NHS treating the sick, or social care looking after our lonely, isolated elderly, or the education of our children?”