Richard Tice said he is “always happy to put things right” and will pay what is owed “if numbers need rechecking” after reports he failed to pay almost £100,000 in corporation tax.
The deputy leader of Reform ran four shell companies which did not pay any tax on profits between 2020 and 2022, The Sunday Times reported.
That benefited his investment company, which went on to make huge donations to the party, the newspaper said.
Mr Tice said in a statement that a long career with multiple businesses was “bound to feature some errors”. He said he would be happy to “pay what is owed” if necessary.
It comes after Reform UK said last week the reported failure of Mr Tice’s company to pay tens of thousands of pounds in tax on dividends was “a minor administrative error”.
The latest report claimed that Mr Tice had used his Quidnet property company’s Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) status to save tax.
REIT companies are exempt from UK corporation tax on rental profits, and on capital gains from property rentals.
Quidnet paid £514,000 of distributions to four companies, according to the report. While Quidnet, having REIT status, would have been exempt from corporation tax, the other companies would not.
The payments were wrongly treated as tax-exempt ordinary dividends, where they should have been treated as taxable REIT property income distributions, the newspaper’s investigation concluded.
That would mean some £98,000 of corporation tax was owed on the income, according to the report, compiled with Tax Policy Associates, a think tank that helped worked on the investigation.
Mr Tice said he had “always paid everything that I was advised to pay” but was “happy to put things right” if needed.
“In a highly successful career spanning 40 years, I have done business in 12 countries across three continents, and been a director of more than 150 companies,” he said.
“Here’s the reality: tax efficiency is a basic corporate responsibility and duty to shareholders. A long career with multiple businesses is bound to feature some errors.
“Naturally, I am always happy to put things right and if numbers need rechecking, of course, I will pay what is owed – be that more or less.”
Mr Tice said just months ago that Angela Rayner should resign if she had “any moral decency”, after the then deputy prime minister admitted she had underpaid stamp duty when buying her £800,000 flat in Hove – something she blamed on legal advice received at the time.
Last week, Reform UK said the reported failure of Mr Tice’s company to pay tens of thousands of pounds in tax on dividends was “a minor administrative error”.
Mr Tice received at least £91,000 because his property investment company, Quidnet REIT Limited, did not pay the required 20% tax on the dividends before they were issued to him and his offshore trust in Jersey, The Sunday Times reported.
The Boston and Skegness MP said on X that “overall HMRC received the correct amount of tax due” and that any issue was due to “complex tax technicality around dividends to certain shareholder classes in REITs”.
The Labour Party previously asked HMRC to investigate his tax affairs after The Sunday Times reported he had “avoided nearly £600,000 in corporation tax” through his property company.
The Independent approached Mr Tice and Reform UK for comment.
