UK PM Sunak paid more than 500,000 pounds in tax last year

Three-page published summary is second time that Sunak has published details of his tax affairs since he became PM in 2022

By Reuters
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February 10, 2024
Britain´s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak attending a meeting at Stormont Castle, in Stormont, on February 5, 2024. — AFP

LONDON: British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak paid 508,000 pounds ($641,000) in tax in the last financial year after income from his investments dwarfed his official salary, a report by his accountants showed on Friday.

Sunak is the wealthiest prime minister in British history through a combination of his past career in financial services and the family fortune of his wife, whose father founded the Indian IT services company Infosys INFY.NS.

The three-page published summary is the second time that Sunak has published details of his tax affairs since he became prime minister in 2022.

The figures show that Sunak made 139,000 pounds from his salary as a member of parliament, finance minister and prime minister between April 2022 and March 2023, and 2.1 million pounds from investments.Of his income from investments, 1.8 million pounds came from capital gains, up from 1.6 million pounds a year earlier.

About 70 percent of the total tax paid by Sunak was due to capital gains tax on the profit made from sales of investments such as stocks.Although Sunak does not have an obligation to provide details of his income, he agreed to do so to provide more transparency about his personal finances.