Use a REIT scheme- reduce their tax payments- Reform approves and TICE actively encourages this!
All Britons should do their best to pay the minimum tax possible, Reform UK’s deputy leader has argued as he dismissed The Times newspaper investigation over his own tax affairs as 'a smear'. Richard Tice, who was presenting a press conference today about Reform’s claims to have saved large sums of money in the English councils it runs (NOT), faced questions about a Sunday Times story, which detailed a scheme the paper said had helped him avoid nearly £600,000 in corporation tax.
According to the paper, Tice’s property company used a rare legal status known as a real estate investment trust, or Reit, which meant it paid NO corporation tax between 2018 and 2021 and avoided paying £580,000 o nearly £600,000 in tax as a result. Labour has urged HMRC to investigate the arrangements.
Asked whether he was right to minimise his tax payments in such a way, Tice deflected and told reporters he rejected the idea people should “pay the absolute maximum tax possible”.
Asked if he would encourage everyone in the UK to pay as little tax as legally possible, Tice replied: “Yes, of course, that’s what you should do.” Tice sought to characterise the story as an attempt by the media to argue that everyone had to pay the maximum tax possible. Tice also denied that Reit schemes were specialist or beyond the use of less rich taxpayers, saying anyone could invest in them.
In a letter to HMRC released on Sunday night, the Labour chair, Anna Turley, called for an investigation into a series of areas where, she said, it was possible that Tice and his company had abused the intentions of the Reit process, calling it “a deeply troubling case which needs to be investigated with the utmost urgency”.
