Sajid Javid, a candidate in the Conservative party leadership contest, has declined to say where he held an offshore trust.
Mr Javid retained the trust while he was an MP and a PPS in the Treasury – a ministerial aide who acts as the chancellor’s eyes and ears in parliament.
On Sunday, Mr Javid joined Nadhim Zahawi MP, another leadership contender and now chancellor, in saying he would agree to make his tax affairs public if elected as leader.
Mr Javid said in an interview with BBC Sunday Morning when asked about publishing his tax returns: “I have no issue with transparency like that. I think if I get the final two, the final two candidates should be quite open about their tax affairs.”
However, Mr Javid – who resigned as Health Secretary last week – has today declined to say in which location his offshore trust was actually held.
He previously said he dissolved the trust when he became a government minister in 2012 and incurred 50 per cent income tax “on those assets” – the “heaviest possible tax burden”.
Mr Javid also said in April that he had always declared the information required by tax, government and parliamentary authorities.
The former chancellor revealed that he had used non-dom status up to 2009 earlier this year. This is an entirely legal mechanism that allows people to reduce their UK tax bill on their worldwide income.
He told the BBC that he had used non-dom status on his tax returns for about “four or five years” in the 2000s.
Mr Javid issued a statement clarifying his tax affairs in April, after The Independent revealed that Rishi Sunak’s wife, Akshata Murty, had used the same route to minimise her UK tax bill. Ms Murty subsequently announced that she would pay UK taxes on her worldwide income.
The ministerial code states that although PPSs are not technically members of the government “they must ensure that no conflict arises, or appears to arise, between their role as a parliamentary private secretary, and their private interests”.
Mr Javid’s trust was not listed in his entry in the register of members’ interests in 2011, but he did declare a shareholding in Deutsche Bank, his former employer.
In April, a spokesman for Mr Javid declined to say if the assets in the trust – which Mr Javid said in a statement he dissolved in 2012 – included these Deutsche Bank shares as well as other assets, including shares in different companies. They also declined to say whether this trust was operated as a blind trust or under a blind management arrangement, or say where it was located.
During his time as a banker, Mr Javid was linked to Dark Blue Investments, an employee benefit trust via which staff were paid share bonuses via specially created entities in order to avoid income tax. The supreme court ruled that tax ought to be paid on these bonuses.
Experts have also queried Mr Javid’s use of non-dom status, given that he was born in the UK and therefore would have had to declare that he did not intend to live in the country in the long term in order to use the mechanism.
Tax transparency has become a flashpoint amid the leadership campaigns after Mr Zahawi claimed that he was the subject of a smear campaign.
He has vowed to publish his tax returns if he wins the race and becomes prime minister, following The Independent’s revelation that HMRC experts are investigating his financial affairs.
The leadership hopeful claimed to be the victim of a “smear” campaign – but vowed to “answer any questions that HMRC has of me” and publish his accounts annually if he succeeds Boris Johnson at No 10.
