Akshata Murty, wife of Britain's finance minister Rishi Sunak, has said that she will start paying UK tax on "all worldwide income," amid controversy over her non-domiciled status.
In a series of tweets shared Saturday, India-born Murty, the daughter of Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy, announced that she would “pay UK tax on an arising basis on all my worldwide income, including dividends and capital gains, wherever in the world that income arises.”
Akshata Murty’s statement came after recent reports that her foreign earnings were shielded from British tax authorities created a political storm for her husband Rishi Sunak. Murty has been accused of using her non-domicile status to save millions in taxes. The Labour opposition has also accused her husband Sunak of "breathtaking hypocrisy" after he raised taxes on ordinary Britons in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis.
In her Twitter thread, Murty emphasied that she was making the change "because I want to, not because the rules require me to", adding that the new arrangements will begin "immediately".
She added she did not want her non-domiciled status to be a "distraction" for her husband or affect her family.
“Until now, I have tried to keep my professional life and my husband’s political career entirely separate,” Murty wrote. “Since Rishi entered parliament, he has not involved himself in my business affairs and I have left politics to him.”
Murty said her 0.9% stake in Infosys is not just an investment but a testament to her father’s hard work, of which she is “incredibly proud”. The decision to pay UK tax, she said, would not change the fact that “India remains the country of my birth, citizenship, parents’ home and place of domicile.”
A person's domicile is usually the country which their father considered his permanent home when the person was born, although this can change if the person plans to permanently live in Britain.
The Guardian newspaper estimated that Murty has received 54.5 million pounds ($71 million) in dividends from the family company Infosys since 2015. Her status allowed her to avoid paying 20 million pounds of tax to the British exchequer, the paper said.
Murty concluded her statement by saying she loved the UK and was proud to live there.
“In my time here I have invested in British businesses and supported British causes. My daughters are British. They are growing up in in the UK. I am so proud to be here,” she wrote.
Once a leading contender to succeed Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak has seen his popularity plummet in recent weeks as a result of the tax row, and has accused critics of mounting a "smear" campaign against his wife.
(With inputs from AFP)
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