{"id":7226,"date":"2022-07-10T11:43:18","date_gmt":"2022-07-10T10:43:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxpolicy.org.uk\/?p=7226"},"modified":"2023-02-14T08:37:34","modified_gmt":"2023-02-14T08:37:34","slug":"zahawi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/heacham.neidles.com\/2022\/07\/10\/zahawi\/","title":{"rendered":"Did Nadhim Zahawi use an offshore trust to avoid almost \u00a34m of capital gains tax?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

January 2023 update: the article below was written on 10 July 2022 and then updated over the next few days, with the final amendments on 16 July 22. It hasn’t been updated since, and so doesn’t reflect what we now know: that at the time I wrote this, Zahawi was in the midst of negotiations with HMRC to settle unpaid tax on the Balshore structure. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This has now been overtaken by events – Zahawi’s two contradictory explanations for why a Gibraltar company came to hold his founder shares in YouGov now both look fairly clearly to be false. So, whilst I could replace all of this piece with the single word “Yes”, I will instead update it properly over the next day or so.<\/em> For the moment, see The Times’ excellent report here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the third of my pieces on Tory leadership contenders1<\/a><\/sup>Updated 11am on 11 July with YouGov’s shareholdings back in 2000, which makes clear that the offshore structure was there from the start; updated at 12pm with a personal note.

\n\n\n\nUpdated again 12.20pm on 11 July with the incoporation dates of Balshore and YouGov.

\n\n\n\nThen updated later that afternoon with more on Balshore thanks to the brilliant commentator “Tigs”.

\n\n\n\nUpdated on 12 July reflecting Zahawi’s purported explanation for why Balshore got its shares, and referring to my full analysis of that claim here<\/a>.

\n\n\n\nUpdated on 13 July with the 2008 share sale, courtesy of @ChrisDavidStone<\/a>.

\n\n\n\nUpdated again on 14 July because my autocorrect just can’t can’t spell “Zahawi”<\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve spent some time looking into Nadhim Zahawi’s tax affairs, and that’s culminated in Sunday’s FT story<\/a>, and the report that follows below. I’ve used information in the public domain, my tax expertise, and input from other tax experts, to try to “reverse-engineer” Zahawi’s tax and corporate planning, and work out what’s going on. This may or may not relate to yesterday’s report<\/a> in the Times that HMRC is investigating Zahawi<\/a>, following a tip-off from the National Crime Agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zahawi is an impressive businessman who deserves plenty of credit for his part in founding YouGov. However, his tax affairs raise some serious questions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n