Farage’s latest defence of Tice has fallen apart.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage wants to gloss over questions about why his Deputy Leader Richard Tice’s company did not pay enough tax, yet his defence isn’t quite stacking up.
Tice is facing calls to be sacked after his property company failed to pay a £91,000 tax bill to HMRC. He has insisted that his company has done nothing wrong.
The Times has revealed that Quidnet REIT Ltd, the property investment company Tice founded, failed to pay tens of thousands of pounds in tax on dividends that were paid to him and his offshore trust.
The paper reports that Quidnet ‘did not pay a required 20 per cent levy on the dividends, known as a “withholding tax”, before channelling profits to Tice and his trust registered in Jersey.”
Reform have tried to claim that the alleged underpayment is just a ‘technicality’.
Asked by a journalist yesterday about his claims that Tice had paid the correct amount of tax and why he did not know the exact figure, Farage hit out at the journalist and asked her to explain how “incredibly complex” REITs — or real estate investment trusts — worked.
Farage then claimed that tax expert Dan Neidle had said that Tice had not ‘evaded or avoided tax and has paid the full amount’. However, Neidle called Farage’s statement false, saying that he did not say Mr Tice paid the full amount. He posted on X: “I said we don’t know what tax Mr Tice and his offshore trust paid.
“And the “little bit more” is an invention.”
So Farage’s defence of Tice has fallen apart.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
Left Foot Forward doesn't have the backing of big business or billionaires. We rely on the kind and generous support of ordinary people like you.
You can support hard-hitting journalism that holds the right to account, provides a forum for debate among progressives, and covers the stories the rest of the media ignore. Donate today.