Angela Rayner admits not paying enough tax on flat purchase and refers herself for investigation

Evening Standard

Angela Rayner’s career took her from being a teenage mother in a council estate in Stockport to Deputy Prime Minister.The politician resigned from her posts on Friday 5 September over her failure to pay the correct amount of stamp duty on a flat by the sea.

Transcript

00:00Yeah, first of all Beth, it's been quite a distressing time for my family.

00:05I have a court order that was in place around confidentiality regarding my son, my family

00:12and my divorce proceedings that happened in 2023 and therefore wasn't able to give a full account

00:19of the circumstances of our complex living arrangements. That order was lifted last night,

00:25I applied to have the order lifted so that I could give people the information. In 2020 my son

00:32had an award and a trust was set up by the court to deal with his finances as part of that award

00:41with a legal trustee and in 2023 when me and my husband divorced the decision was because that

00:49home was adapted to support my son who has lifelong disabilities as a result of that injury that

00:56occurred to him. That trust was set up and they decided that they would take on the property so

01:03that me and my husband could have a nesting arrangement where we could provide for my child

01:09in our family home which is our family home and remains our family home. So when I'm looking after

01:14the children I go back to the family home and then when my ex-husband is looking after children he

01:19does and it was done primarily to support my son with his additional needs and to provide stability

01:26for them during the divorce and that was the arrangement that we put in place. I then went to

01:32purchase, took my life savings basically out of the property, the 25% that I still owned within the

01:40property took that money out so that I could purchase with a mortgage the place in Hove and I took you

01:49know advice on that and I relied on that legal advice that I received that said that I was liable to pay

01:58the standard stamp duty. Subsequently to that with all of the media reports that have been coming out,

02:06I took expert counsel advice on all of my affairs to ensure that everything was done proper and that

02:13expert counsel said that the advice that I received was inaccurate because of the trust. I don't own the

02:21property, that is true, I only own one property that is mortgaged like most people but because of the

02:27nature of the trust that was set up by the court that I would be liable to pay the additional stamp duty.

02:33As soon as I knew that that was the case I have alerted and referred myself to the independent

02:41advisor on the ministerial code to ensure that they can look transparently at what's happened

02:46and also contacted HMRC to say that there is additional tax owing on this and that I'm prepared

02:53to pay that and fully comply with the HMRC as well. Okay so Deputy Prime Minister, so what's happened is you

03:00thought you were not liable or you thought you did not have a financial interest in Ashton because

03:05you put it into trust for your son who is presumably under 18. Yes correct. And then you have taken your

03:11equity out, you've bought a home in Hove, you thought that was your main home, you paid standard stamp duty

03:17on and now you've been informed by an expert counsel that actually that is classified for tax purposes as your

03:25second home and you are liable for additional stamp duty. Well I when I purchased it I relied on the

03:32advice that I received from lawyers yes therefore it's obviously not my main residence yes and therefore

03:39I pay the additional premium yeah because it isn't my main residence even though I only own one property

03:47there are very different rules to counsel tax yes as they are to the rules around um stamp duty

03:54but you now but I took and relied on that advice and that advice was wrong and that advice was wrong

04:00so the accusations that you didn't pay enough stamp duty on Hove they're actually accurate you didn't

04:06they are accurate yeah they're accurate in a different sense I think the accusations were

04:12that I set up a trust or I flipped it to try and avoid paying it but actually the complex area of the

04:19trust which the advice that I relied upon didn't pick that up the leading tax counsel who has

04:28subsequently looked at it has gone into that and has said that actually because of that it did remain my

04:33sole property and the trust wasn't set up as accusations have been made for me to try and flip or

04:41dodge tax dodge tax or anything so you weren't trying to dodge tax no the trust was set up by a court

04:47to provide for my son after after an injury

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