Lord Sugar tried to swerve tax payments on a whopping £390 million dividend by claiming he wasn’t a resident of the UK, it has been revealed.
A joint investigation by The Sunday Times and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has found that the vocal Jeremy Corbyn critic – who threatened to leave the country if the Labour man was elected prime minister – tried to argue that he was not based in Britain in the 2021-22 tax year to avoid a £186 million payment to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC).
Sugar argued he qualified for non-residency — meaning a person who does not live in Britain and spends no more than 90 days here in a year – because he had spent months in Australia hosting its version of Celebrity Apprentice.
He tried to persuade authorities to “disregard” the income earned from Amshold Group, which totalled hundreds of millions of pounds.
However, he failed to remember that, as a member of the House of Lords, he was automatically resident in the UK.
He has since reportedly said that he is prepared to quit the Lords to change his tax status, raising questions about his commitment to his parliamentary duties.
Sugar was elevated to the Lords as a Labour peer in 2009 and served as Gordon Brown’s enterprise champion. He stayed in the role under David Cameron and switched his allegiance to the crossbench group in 2015.
His last recorded vote was in 2017 and he last took part in a debate in the chamber the following year.
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